Tery Daly is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped ina mystery wrapped in a corn tortilla. It's a wonder that between playing guitar in Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares, drumming in The Master 8000, running Starcityscene.com and all it's related events, and working a day job that Tery actually has time to do any of those things, let alone do them so well and make them look so easy, but on top of all that, he's found time to shoehorn another band, one he refers to as "his band", in there.

The Static Octopus has a long and bumpy past of fits and starts, lineup changes, name changes, but above all else, it has a LOT of great songs! After years of working to put and keep together a consistent lineup of the band, he's finally got one that he's happy with. In addition to Tery on lead vocals and lead guitar,T.S. Octopus also includes Dan Hutt (Near South Davenport) on rhythm guitar and vocals, Scott Stanfield (Prairie Psycho, Floating Opera) on bass and vocals, and Jeff Gustafson (Sad Old Lady, Minutia Stew, Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares) on drums. I chatted with the members of the band to find out where they came from, what they're doing now, and where they're going.

SCS: Tell me about the new band, How did it start, all that stuff?

Tery: Hard to say, but let’s officially put it at Jan of 2005, because that’s when Dan joined the band. Backing up a bit, Jeff Gustafson and I started recording our soon to be released CD, almost 2 years ago. I saw Jeff playing with his band Minutia Stew, and asked him to join the band. He was the first on board, and we started recording soon after that. We had recruited a few other friends to play some shows, but it wasn’t really a “real” band. Scott Stanfield I knew as a guitarist in Floating Opera, but didn’t know he was also a bass player, and a very good one, until Richard Rebarber recommended him. It think it was after Scott's band Prairie Psycho played at Scenefest 2, I mentioned that I was looking for a bass player and it worked out that he was able to do it. Jeff, Scott and I started working in the fall of 2004 with Chanty Stovall on Guitar, but after about 5 or 6 practices, it became evident that wasn’t working out. Chanty is a great guitar player, and a great friend, but his style of guitar playing just wasn’t right for this band. I had decided over a trip back to N.Y. over Christmas ‘04 that we needed a new guitar player.

I didn’t have anyone lined up or anyone in mind for that matter, but I was really hoping it wouldn’t take that long to find someone. I knew of Dan Hutt through my friend Dan Kaspari. I had met Dan H. a few years ago, and he told me about his band, then named The Davenports, and based on his description they sounded like something I’d really like. I kept an eye out for them but never saw them scheduled to play anywhere and assumed they had broken up or moved or something. Right after my N.Y. trip I went over to hang out at Kaspari’s, and he put on a CD by his friend’s band that was called Near South Davenport. It turned out to be that same band with a new name, and they blew me away. The type of stuff Dan was writing was very similar to what I was writing, and as soon as I heard his writing, playing, and singing, I was like “Holy Crap, that’s the guy I’ve been looking for.” The next day, I e-mailed Dan and sent him this very long, rambling, yet very heartfelt and sincere message trying to convince him that even though we didn’t know each other at all, he was absolutely the guy I needed in my band. I offered to send him some of my recordings and he could decide after that. It probably came off like some sicko stalker letter, but fortunately for me, Dan's into that kind of thing. I totally didn’t expect he would join, because he was already fronting his own band, why would he need to play in mine, but he said really liked the songs and would be happy to join. I was delighted when he did, because I finally had a really strong lineup. I had been wanting to change the name of the band for about a year, but couldn’t come up with ANYTHING. I had about a million names but wasn’t happy with any. Amy came up with The Static Octopus, I liked it as soon as I heard it, and we switched to that in about Nov/Dec of 2004.

Prior to The Static Octopus I had been doing Starboy and Creatures of Habit which were mostly just recording projects that would occasionally play live when I could browbeat friends into learning a set of songs. I would have liked to have been playing all the time, but couldn’t because I could never find people to play with.

Dan: That sounds about right.

Scott: This is the first I knew of the recommendation from Richard. Thanks, Richard! From my conversation with Tery at Scenefest, I remember being hooked by Tery's description of the band-to-be as "a blend of the Beatles, the Hollies, and the Ramones." That sounded like a lot of fun. I would agree with Tery's observation that things jelled quickly once Dan was playing with us. Dan and Tery seem very, very much on the same page musically.

SCS: How would you define your sound to someone who’s never seen you

Tery: I guess like British Invasion and 70’s influenced Power Pop or Indie Pop combined. It’s kind of both contemporary and old sounding at the same time. Some of it’s heavy, some of it’s jangly. Outside of some very obvious comparisons to bands like The Beatles, XTC, & The Hollies, some of the comparisons that writers have made in reviewing previous releases of mine are: The Byrds meet Led Zeppelin, Sparklehorse, Guided by Voices, The Move, Oranger, The Kinks, The Pretty Things, The Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, The Shoes, Redd Kross, Nick Lowe, Marshall Crenshaw, Cheap Trick, The Soft Boys, Status Quo, Simon & Garfunkle, The Turtles, 20/20, Syd Barrett, and one of my all time favorite comparisons, The Partridge Family on downers, but that was more referring to my earlier lo-fi psych period.

Dan: I agree with Tery. It seems to me pretty straight-forward power-pop, which I love, with Tery's own twists, of course. A couple of songs really remind of XTC and a couple of the Records.

Scott: Both Tery and Dan have Rickenbackers, and I would define the sound as "the kind of music that sounds great on Rickenbackers."

SCS: What types of music and which musicians/groups influenced the band members growing up

Tery: The Beatles and other British Invasion stuff were probably the biggest influence on me. I was the youngest in my family, so my older sisters were the perfect age to be into that stuff, and my mom loved them too, so I heard The Beatles a LOT when I was growing up. Being from a musical family I was musically aware from a very young age. When I was little, the biggest stuff on the radio was The Beatles, & The Beach Boys, I used to listen to a lot of Oldies radio which was mostly playing Doo-Wop because in the sixties the only oldies there were was music from the ‘50’s. I guess I was born with a natural ear, because I could pick out and sing all the harmonies on the Beach Boys, Beatles and Four Seasons songs I'd hear on the radio and that’s the style of music that most resounded with me, it felt “right”. I listen to and love a huge variety of music, every kind of rock you could name, jazz, blues, classic country, and a lot of it influences my playing, but as far as writing goes, it’s always 2-3 minute pop songs with melodic bass lines, jangly guitars, and lots of vocals.

Dan: I also was the youngest in my family, by a long ways.

Tery: Yeah, his next closest sibling is 237 years older than Dan! It's true!

Dan: My earliest memories of music are being in our house upstairs in the summer (probably of about 1972) and having my brothers, Jim and Tom, put the headphones on me from their new hi-fi sets. Jim would play me "Barbara Ann" from the Beach Boys, and then I'd go across the hall and Tom would play me something by the Beatles. And there were always lots of great 45s around the house from them and my Mom, stuff like Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, etc. So I grew up with that, and in jr. high my sister Ginny and brother-in-law Bob got me into New Wave stuff like Yaz, Squeeze, XTC and the Human League, not to mention Cheap Trick, and I sort of took it from there. In college I discovered Trip Shakespeare and now I hang out with Randy Watson of the Return a lot, and he's introduced me to lots of new and old stuff that fit right into those molds: things like Super Furry Animals, the Zombies, Jason Falkner, etc. My friend Charlie Burton has also re-turned me onto the beauty of the 45 record, and gotten me into lots of new/old stuff like the Searchers and the Everlys that way. But for me it all stems back to those Beatles and Beach Boys records. Most everything new I get these days doesn't fall far from that tree.

Scott: Like Tery, I enjoy a lot of different things -- I love the Carter Family, Ornette Coleman, Robert Wyatt, Schoenberg's piano concerto, to give as wide a range of examples as I can -- but as I was nine, going on ten, when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, and that was the first music that penetrated my soul, the foundation for me has always been the Beatles, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, singles like the Hollies' "Look Through Any Window," the Searchers' "Needles and Pins," the Beau Brummels' "Just a Little," the Who's "I Can't Explain," and so on. It took the punk era, the Ramones and Patti Smith, to give me the push to take a chance and take up an instrument myself, but it always seemed to me that punk was always coming straight out of the heart of 1965, all that nihilist veneer notwithstanding.

Tery: The funniest part about that "angry punk" thing is that when the first wave of British punks caught The Ramones on their first U.K. tour in '76, they totally misinterpreted The Ramones intentions. The Ramones music, by their own admission, was so heavily based on 50's & 60's Phil Spector produced girl groups, the Beach Boys & surf music and bubblegum rock in general, but they were doing it fast, loud and with a definite attitude, but aside from lyrical content like "53rd & 3rd" or "Gonna Kill That Girl" they weren't a particularly angry band, they were all about taking the pomposity out of rock and putting the fun back into it. There's a really interesting interview with Tommy Ramone in the most recent issue of Tape-Op where he talks about the bands early years.

SCS: Do you prefer writing/recording or live performance?

Tery: Well I absolutely adore recording, it’s just so much fun. It’s probably the closest equivalent to “play” in a childlike context that I can come near as an adult. I have so much fun recording because there’s no limit to what you can experiment with, and it’s always a learning experience, either when you get something exactly the way you want it, or on the opposite side of the coin, when you totally stumble onto something great by accident, it’s just so much fun. I can lose entire days while recording, I'll start at noon, and 10 minutes later it's midnight. How the hell did that happen? I really like to play live as well, now that I’ve got a band to do it with. I suppose I’m not as comfortable fronting a band as I am just being a member of a band, but I don’t have any problem doing it, like, I don’t get nervous before shows or anything.

Dan: I love both. I love the control aspect of recording, though I'm still really feeling my way with the whole thing. I think I'd go crazy, though, if I couldn't play live at least once in a while. Even if it was just a house party or something. I've never really played out live a lot yet, and I want to experience that--particularly playing in other cities, etc. Unlike, Tery, however, I still get nervous as hell before every show.

Scott: Live performance, I think. I love doing things in my lower-than-low-fi basement studio, but professional studio recording seems to always involve twenty minutes of listening to quarter-notes on a snare drum. WHAP WHAP WHAP -- "OK -- wait -- now try it again" --WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP. Then another twenty minutes for the left rack tom... and so on. Then you buzz through several songs in a few minutes. Then, if you're the bass player, you sit around for hours while the lead guitarist takes several thousand passes at his solos. Ho hum, say I. Not that it isn't great to have the final product to play for folks.

Tery: If it's any consolation, Scott, I'm known for getting things on the first take 98% of the time, and if I'm not happy with that, I know why and can get it the 2nd time. I'm like the least paitient person when it comes to recording, I like to do it F-A-S-T!

SCS: Tery, you mentioned you wish you’d been playing live more over the years with your own band, but couldn't find musicians, however, you've been playing in other bands during that time? What’s up with that?

Tery: Well yeah, over the past few years, I briefly played bass in The Atomic Pigs, The Honey Hush was together for about a year. Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares evolved out of that. When The Honey Hush broke up, we had like 5 or 6 shows booked including a couple with The Holy Ghost while they were coming through on their tour, and we didn’t want to cancel out of any of them and get a bad name with the venues, so we just decided to switch over to doing Kristen’s songs. I’d always liked her freaky dreamsongs when she’d do them occasionally solor or with Lori Allison and her sister Meghan, so we decided to give them the full-fledged psychedelic band treatment, and so basically that band started right when The Honey Hush stopped.

The only reason I was playing in other bands, but not my own was because I couldn’t find people who could or would play with me for a number of reasons. Many of the musicians I contacted over the years about playing considered Power-pop pretty faggy and light-weight. It isn’t a style that’s particularly popular at the moment, so not everybody even wants to play it. I’d been looking for a drummer on and off for about 13 years before finding Jeff. Bass players are always difficult to find, and it’s difficult to find people who can play my stuff. Most people in Lincoln know me as a guitar player, or now as a drummer too, but before any of those things, I’m actually a bass player first. Bass plays a very lead role in all my songs, and finding people who could play it hasn’t been easy. My music all has a lot of vocal harmony as well, so I need people with a really good ear who can play and sing well, so finding the combination of people who are into the music, available, and have the talent to do everything I needed them to was very difficult. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this band together right now! I think of it as very simple music, but that hasn't been the case for many of the people who've played it.

SCS: Speaking of Suzy Dreamer, what's up with them?

Tery: Back in December, we took a planned break from playing live to work on new material. Kristen had like 5 or 6 new songs demoed that she played for us, and was supposed to get us copies of, but never did. Sometime around January Kristen and I talked about it, and determined that we were both really ready to put the Suzy Dreamer thing on the back burner...for a while anyway. She’s really busy with school and working two jobs, I’m busy getting this band off the ground, as well as learning to play drums in The Master 8000 which is also just getting it's rock legs. Jeff and Amos are playing in Sad Old Lady, and will probably be starting up with Minutia Stew again pretty soon, I heard some new stuff Michael is writing, and it kicks ass! The fact that Suzy Dreamer is on a break at the moment is actually all working out well for all of us. When Kristen is less busy with school, maybe later in the spring, we'll get Suzy Dreamer or something else we’ve talked about doing up and going. It's a lot of fun being in bands with Kristen, so I'm sure we'll have something going before too long.

SCS: What do you like and dislike about the music scene in Lincoln?

Scott: If your ambition is to be the next big thing or be on the cover of Spin, you're probably in the wrong place -- Lincoln isn't much of a launching pad. If you're simply hoping to have opportunity to play with good musicians and/or be reasonably likely of hearing a good band if you step into a club, then you could do a lot worse.

Tery: Obviously as part of my work with Starcityscene.com and A Situation, I’ve discussed this quite a bit with both musicians and non-musicians. Without going into a really long dissertation on this, because believe me, I could, first I'll say that the level of talent in Lincoln is just incredible. If this town only turned out a Nick Westra, or a Dan Jenkins or a Jack Rinke, or a Greg Cosgrove, or a Randy Watson, or a Pat Bradley, or a hundred other songwriters I could name, would, and could, be enough. The fact that ALL these songwriters of incredible caliber all come from the same town is awesome. They may not all be from here originally, but theyr'e all doing the majority of their work here.

I like that the scene is now a lot more cohesive than it’s been at some times in the past, more people coming out to support the bands, more of the bands supporting each other. I think that's a BIG plus. It's still a lot of the same faces, there are just more of them then there were a few years ago.

It's also stuff that I think people take for granted. For example, It's awesome that the venues in Lincoln are very friendly to original music. In some towns original bands almost can’t get gigs because venues much prefer cover bands because they draw a lot more people, and the people are more willing to support cover bands than original bands. Lincoln is now, and seemingly has always been very friendly to people writing their own music. Many bands, even those interviewed here say they wish there were more venues, but really the fact that there are even a dozen or so venues in Lincoln that support original music regularly, is really great. I can't really say there's anything I dislike about it.

Dan: Although I've been in Lincoln since college in the late 80's and have been "around" the Lincoln music scene since then, I don't go to the bars that much unless there's a specific band I want to hear, so I've never really felt like I've been "in" any sort of scene. I appreciate places like Knickerbockers and Duffy's (although I've not played there yet) a lot for providing a consistent place for bands to play original music. Of course, Tery himself has been an absolutely incredible asset, all by himself, to this city's music scene in the promotional work he's done. We should all just give him money, as far as I'm concerned.

Tery: Yeah, I'm cool with that, cash or Flying V's, I'm flexible that way.

Dan: Beyond that, I will say that I've been disappointed at times that more people don't turn out for certain great shows. As Tery mentioned, power-pop or 60's vocal harmony-based music isn't exactly the vogue right now, but it still stuns me that someone like Lincoln's own Matthew Sweet has to go to Omaha to do a show, and even then it's for less than 200 people. Something's not right there.

SCS: What is the name of the new album and when does it come out?

Dan: It's called "Diver Down", and it will be out this afternoon.

Tery: [laughs] It’s called “Here Comes Nothing”, and I’m not sure when it’ll come out yet, I'm shopping it around to labels now. Hopefully soon, like this spring or summer. If I don't find someone to put it out pretty quickly, I'll probably just release it myself. As I mentioned earlier, it’s been done for a while, so I’m ready to get it out and start working on the next ones. "Here Comes Nothing" is just Jeff on Drums and me playing everything else, so I can't wait to recording with the whole band, especially on the vocals.

SCS: Is there a single off the CD?

Tery: Single? [maniacal laughter], Do people even think in terms of singles these days? You mean like for releasing it to radio or something? If I'm giving it to a radio station, and they ask which song to push I'd probably tell them to go with "Ella Going Backwards" and "Mr. Kensington", because they represent the poppier and heavier sides of the band, but I guess I'd want to be sure to throw "You're A Curiosity" on the list too.

SCS: Do you remember where you were when you wrote "Ella Going Backwards"?

Tery: Interesting you ask about that one in particular, because that's probably the ONLY one off the album I could tell you about with any specificity. I wrote it on a napkin in the car leaning against the steering wheel when I was driving home from work one day. It was literally penned starting at the intersection of Touzlain & Adams and ending at the intersection of N.63rd St & Cotner. I actually sat at the stop sign on 63rd st and finished the last verse while checking my rear-view mirror to make sure no one came up behind me. Sometimes I write music first add lyrics later, sometimes the other way around. On RARE occasions I get both, lyric and music, at the same time, and basically as soon as you're done writing down the lyrics you've got a completed song. I remember singing the lyric to myself as I was writing the lyrics down, as if I already knew the song. It's kind of weird when that happens. I need to get those down quickly so I don't forget them. It really sucks if that happens and I don't have paper and a pen around, a guitar is nice too. Lemon-Lime World! off my last album was that same way.

SCS: What about Mr. Kensington, is there really such a person?

Tery: That songs is about a couple of things. Mostly, it's a blanket condemnation of rich people. When I lived in N.Y. I used to work in a town called Great Neck which is on the north shore of Long Island. Population-wise and geographically it's very small, but per capita, it's one of the richest towns in the United States. I worked at several different jobs in that town including ones where I'd be waiting on people in stores, and some jobs that involved going into people's homes. Seeing how incredibly self-centered they are, and dismissive of other people made me come to dislike them as a group. One of the neighborhoods in Great Neck is called Kensington, so I just used that as a generalized representation for all of them, they're all Mr. Kensington. It's also in a lesser way about money not being able to buy happiness, and that all the money in the world won't keep you from being an asshole...it seems the opposite is true, the more of it you have, the bigger an asshole you are. It's also not just that area, I've seen the same thing up in Omaha and Lincoln. Rich people are also really horrific tippers. That's what I meant in the lines:

"He wants for nothing
and he's going to give you some"

Having said all that, I feel the need to add that Mr. Kensington reflected a state of mind that I was in when I wrote it. I don't actually have any long term, deep-seated resentment towards rich people in general. I'm hoping to become a rich asshole myself someday! I also really love the town of Great Neck, it's just the attitudes of a lot of the people who live there I have issues with.

SCS: What was the first instrument you started to play? How old were you when you began playing? Did anybody (relative for example) influence you to begin playing?

Tery: I can play just about any instrument you put in front of me, but I started on guitar when I was about 5 years old. My dad played guitar, my mom played guitar and ukulele, and they both came from musical families, so I got it from both sides. I never took a music lesson in my life, I taught myself to play out of chord books, which explains why I play upside down, I never had anyone to correct me. I had to teach myself in private, cause if my dad had found out I was playing his guitar while he was out at work, he’d have kicked my ass. He used to tell me all the time “Don’t touch my guitar when I’m not here”. That’s probably the best thing he could have done to get me to play, because I couldn’t wait until the door would close behind him to go run into my parents bedroom and get it.

Dan: I was originally a drummer, from age 7 when my parents bought me my cousin's old used trap set. I only started playing guitar at around age 16, only because I wanted to start writing songs. I took a few lessons to learn the chords and a few scales, and that's all. For me the songwriting and the vocals have always been the focus of it all. And that's exactly why I'm still not much better on guitar than I was at 16, because I use it only as an instrument for writing and not to be good for it's own sake. I need to practice more and know the theory more, but it bores the shit out of me.

Tery: I started playing bass when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I was playing guitar in the church folk group. I wasn't really into the whole church scene at all, but it was an opportunity to play guitar regularly when I didn't have a band, and there were some chickas in the folk group I was hot for. That's right, I was thinking lustful thoughts while playing guitar in church on Sundays, a sure ticket to hell! One day the music director went into some storage closet in the school attached to the church to see of there might be any extra music stands in there and found an electric bass and an amp in there, a white, late 60's Univox, which was a ripoff of the Mosrite guitars that The Ventures used. It looked just like the guitar Johnny Ramone always played. No one knows where it came from, why the school had it, or how long it had been there. The director walked in with the bass, and said to the guitar players "Does anybody know how to play bass?" I INSTANTLY lept up waving my hand frantically yelling "I do, I do!!!". I'd never touched a bass in my life. I did it because I'd wanted an electric guitar forever, but my parents couldn't afford one, and I was way too lazy to get a job to pay for it myself, and here was a chance to have one loaned to me indefintely. Sure it wasn't a guitar, but it was an electric so I had to have it. Turns out I had a strong aptitude for the bass. I soon had the parishioners tapping their feet and throwing devil horns.

Scott: I had about a year of cello lessons while in college -- a friend of mine found out that instrument lessons were free if one was on financial aid, so we both took cello, pretty much as a lark. About a year later I heard "Blitzkrieg Bop" and thought, "Jeez, that can't be too tough to do, and it sounds GREAT." So I acquired a bass guitar and started playing with whoever would put up with me. Along the way I learned some basics of guitar and piano as well.

SCS: Who are some local bands or musicians that you admire or feel should be recognized?

Tery: Ideal Cleaners, and specifically Dan Jenkins as a songwriter, Nick Westra is one of the most talented people I know. Richard Rebarber, Rent Money Big. Tangelo are absolutely awesome, as is anything that Pawl Tisdale has been involved in over the years. Charles Lieurance is a great songwriter, but he's a dang Texican now, so he doesn't count anymore. This is hard for me, because I could just list a hundred bands here, Bright Calm Blue, Marianas, The Zyklon Bees, The Bad Sects, Papers, for example, and give very detailed reasons why they're great, and why I love them, but no matter who or how many bands I listed, I'd be forgetting someone who should be included, and I wouldn't want to do that. Right, cause I didn't mention Forty Twenty, The Golden Age, The Mezcal Brothers, Thunderstandable, Charlie Burton, and they should all be mentioned too...well they have been now, but you know what I mean. And that's just mentioning current bands, looking at people who've done a lot to contribute to the Lincoln music scene over the years, there's a LOT more people that should be here too. Fuck it, go read the encyclopedia of Lincoln bands...that's who should be recognized!

Dan: No question in my mind, the Return is hands-down the best band in this town, and probably the Midwest. Those guys, as only a 3-piece, can do it all: great songwriting, 3 members that each sing very well, and musicianship that blows my mind. The range of music they can speak about intelligently, from Donovan to the Super Furries, is pretty impressive, and Randy's technical/recording prowess is formidable. Ted Alesio is the best drummer I've ever seen, Randy is a fantastic rhythm or lead guitarist, and Bob is truly like McCartney on the melodic bass. And they're just really nice guys. I get to hear them every week as they tolerate me at their rehearsals. Also, Dan Kaspari has a great pop sensibility and more guitar-playing talent in his pinkie finger than I'll ever know. I'm anxious for him to start doing some more live stuff too. I also like For Against quite a bit, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jon Baker, formally of the Gladstones, as being probably the greatest pop voice Lincoln has seen in the last 30 yrs. Also, my bandmate Tery is an amazing talent: a great guitar player with a great batch of pop songs that it's hard to screw up. Sorry for the excessively long answer.

Tery: Yeah, I'd defintely put The Return in there as well. Althought they don't play live much..well almost never, they are one of the best, and oldest bands in town. Actually they're right up our alley, we should drag them out of the basement and do a show with them.

Scott: I like all the bands that neither Tery nor Dan has mentioned yet.

SCS: What band would be your dream band to tour with?

Tery: Holy hell, do I make people answer this every month? What a bastard! Hmmmm...Beatles, anytime. I’d have loved to play with The Soft Boys at some of their earlier gigs. Pink Floyd, 67. I would have loved to have gotten to tour with Guided by Voices. Hmm.The Apples In Stereo, Oranger...but those are just bands that I think would have been a good match up with our music. I would have loved to have toured with Stones in 67 or 69-72, The Who in their very early days, Hendrix, Led Zep for some old school debauchery. Ya know who else, Thelonious Monk, I would have loved to have hung with him for a while, because you hear stories about what an enigmatic freak he was. I would have loved to have gotten to know him and to see him live. When the other members of his band would solo, if they were really kickin’ it, he’d get up and kind of dance around the stage and mumble and grunt rhythmically, just totally like an involuntary thing. He’d frequently get so lost in the music digging his band, he’d miss his cue to start a piano solo, or go into a coda or something, and have to run back to the piano when he realized it.

Dan: It's hard to answer that. It would be a dream come true sometime to play a show with the Return or Matt Wilson (Trip Shakespeare). Those could be a good fit.

Scott: The Shaggs.

Tery: That would be cool, but I think I'd be WAY more interested in meeting their dad, he seemed like a total freak.

SCS: So Tery, you write all the songs, how does the band work a song from the idea stage to a finished song?

Tery: Ah, man, now you’re going to out me as an anal retentive freak. Since so much of the material was written and recorded before I actually had a band, I wanted the stuff played exactly like I did it on the recordings, because in my mind, that's how the song goes! So I just gave the other members the recordings and had them learn their parts, so for them, it was probably like playing in a cover band. Once we start working on new stuff, unless I have a very specific part I want someone to play, I'll just let them do what they want. I’m pretty particular as a bass player, because my style of writing for the bass is a lot more melodic than most bassists, in many songs the bass plays a very lead role in the song, so that’s probably where I’m most strict as far as wanting a band member to play what I want them to play. Since I don’t know how to write music, I just write songs in my head, and in order to work it to a completed version the way I hear it in my head it’s a lot easier to just record it and hand them a CD, then to teach each person all their instrumental and vocal parts. I'm also a VERY impaitient teacher, if people don't pick stuff up quicly. With the future stuff, I’d like to get Dan involved in arranging some of the vocal stuff with me, because he’s really good at that too. Whenever I hear his song “Lantern Schematic”, I wish I had written it.

Dan: I'm the new guy in the group, so it's kind of been, so far, just an exercise in catching up and learning the material on my own and then putting it together with the band. 'Til now, it was kind of success for me to just get through a song at all w/o screwing up, but now we're kind of moving to the stage of me having (hopefully) committed it to memory and focusing on getting the nuances down and generally getting the set tighter as a whole. Certainly, these are Tery's songs and he's good about making sure we're faithful to his original intent/recordings. I would be the same in his shoes. But everybody seems to get along pretty well and it's just a lot of fun to play this music with nice guys.

Tery: We ARE nice guys, aren't we?

Scott: I can confirm that Tery has a very, very clear idea of what he wants the bass player to be playing.

SCS: What’s your favorite venue to perform at, and why?

Tery: Locally or anywhere?

SCS: Both

Tery: Locally, I love Duffy’s, I love the vibe there, but their stage sound is usually not that great. Knickerbockers has, I don’t know, I’ll call it less of a “cool vibe”. That sounds lame, I guess It's just a comfort level thing, but the stage sound at Kbox is better. After having practiced in the basement of Knickerbockers for about two and a half years you'd think I'd at least be as comfortable there as at Duffy's, but If I'm going to a bar just to hang out, I suppose I just like Duffy's better. Either way, they've both been the biggest supporters of live original music in Lincoln so they both deserve a lot of respect and support! Nationally, althought I've never played at either of these places yet, I LOVE The Bottleneck in Lawrence and The High Dive in Champaign, IL. is great, awesome sound, maybe the best ever in a club of it's size, and strangely clean!

Dan: Knickerbocker's has always been extremely hospitable to me since I played with The Davenports. I have a warm spot in my heart for those guys and that place. I'd love to play at Duffy's sometime, too, so hopefully that will work out. I've sure seen a lot of great shows there over the years. My band Near South Davenport played at the Zoo a few wks. ago, and that was a ton of fun.

Tery: Dan was sick as hell that night, but if you didn't know that, you wouldn't have been able to tell.

Scott: I like playing at the Zoo, but I miss the smoke.

SCS: What is a musical goal that you would still like to achieve?

Tery: Shit, I’d like to keep a consistent lineup together! That and to get all the songs that I've currently got written and demoed, recorded, released and played live. I hope this band stays together for a really long time, we've got a lot of work to do!

Dan: I echo Tery's sentiments. I'm having a lot of fun in The Static Octopus, and I hope to continue this for a long time. It's fun to be more of a role player in a group, and I adore doing backing vocals and harmonies. Tery's songs also ask me to do things on guitar that I might not do on my own songs with Near South Davenport, so I feel like it's a good opportunity to grow that way as well. I hope we can really play out a whole lot and get the word out on these fantastic songs Tery has. For my own part, I hope to have an NSD record self-released this year and play a whole lot in town and elsewhere. That's certainly a goal.

Scott: Play a show with the Shaggs.

SCS: What separates The Static Octopus from other acts on the scene now?

Tery: Aside from an upside down guitar player, it's probably the fact that not many other bands in Lincoln, or even Omaha for that matter, are really doing music like this. Dan’s band does, The Return does, but like I said, they almost never play. There aren't too many bands playing “real” power pop. I think a lot of lamewad mall punk bands call what they're doing Power-pop and think they’re playing power-pop, but they’re not. It's some sadly diluted 27th generation version of the real thing, and they have NO idea.

Dan: I'd have to say that we're probably the most masculine band in town right now, for starters. Seriously, Tery's right that probably only the Static Octopus, NSD and the Return are doing power-pop right now in Lincoln, which is fine. But I really want to avoid the answer to this question that you see from practically every group, that goes something like, "I don't really know if you can categorize our music exactly...there's really no one else out there doing exactly what we're doing right now." And invariably, it turns out to be such crap. They're just a xerox candy bar of every other rock band you've ever heard. All cynicism aside, I include myself in that equation. It's like, there's only so many chords anyway, and this is just pop, you know? And that's fine. As I get older and learn more about the music I like, my tastes have gotten narrower by far. But that's natural, I think. The point is to identify what you like and come as close to it as possible without being overly-derivative. But it's ok to wear your influences and categories on your sleeve.

Tery: I'd agree with "identify what you like and come as close to it as you can" to an extent. When I write songs, I'm not trying to write a song that sounds like any particular band, I'm basically trying to write the kind of songs that I'd like to hear, but never do, when I turn on the radio. Or is that the same thing? Like I don't write a song intentionally to sound like The Beatles, or XTC, or The Records, but those are all bands that I love and the type of music that I like to listen to, so that's the type of music I write. If it does happen to come out sounding like any of them, for me, that means it's a good song. One time I was playing some of my songs for my father-in-law who's also a musician, and after listening to several songs he said "You know, it doesn't ALL have to sound like The Beatles", which I thought was hilarious, but I would say it's pretty obivous that as songwriters, Dan and I are FIRMLY in touch with our inner-Beatle, and very secure in that fact.

SCS: Any rituals before you go onstage?

Tery: Jeff likes to get naked and smear his body with creamed corn and kaopectate. For me, not really, but Amy (Tery's wife) says I get really grumpy, which I suppose is true. I become really impatient if I have to wait around before setting up or playing, and I can’t focus very well on non-show related things. I’m not good at holding deep conversations before a show, cause I’m always thinking of something else, or making sure everyting that needs to be done is done. I shake my foot like Courtney Nore. After we play, if you're not adoring me as much as I think you should be, or as much as I think someone else might, I'll go talk to them instead, so if you want to talk to me after my band plays, you gotta really lay it on realy thick.

Dan: I don't like to hang around the venue very much before a show. I'm too nervous. I like to drop my stuff off and then go someplace else to read or hang out or something by myself, and then come back right when we're ready to play. No time to worry, that way.

Tery: Maybe I'll get you a subscription to "Hightlights" or "Penthouse" or something. Being around bands and musicians a lot, it surprises me how many people "get nervous before a show" I've never really understood it because I equate nervousness with either being unprepared to do something, or a general discomfort with doing it. Like I'm sure I'd get nervous if I had to give a speech in front of a large group of strangers, because even if I'm completely prepared to do it, I'm just not that comfortable doing that, but playing music is something I love to do, and can do well, so what's there to be nervous about? I'm sure there's probably more to it than that.

Scott: Before I quit smoking, I used to have a cigarette before I played. Now, I wish I was having a cigarette.

SCS: What was your most memorable live performance, and what made it that?

Tery: I remember the very first live show I played in front of an audience; in a grade school talent show with a band called Equus (we won) I still have a newspaper clipping from the school newspaper. I guess some shows I played with a metal band I was in during HS stick out, like the largest ones we played in auditoriums, That band was awesome because the musicians in that band, especially me and the drummer had musical ESP. Our styles just meshed so well, so naturally. We’d do these awesome fills perfectly together, I’d just do what I was gonna do, and the drummer was right there with me the whole time. Getting to play a show with Grant Hart from Husker Du was definitely an honor.

Dan: I haven't played live that much, to be honest, but maybe I'd even say some of the recent things I've done with Dan and Noah in NSD. We've been playing out a little more recently and I think we're getting tighter and a little more simplified as a 3-piece. The first show we ever did as a 3-piece was back in 2001 at an outdoor 4th of July thing in Tecumseh, I think, when my old band the Davenports was still going. The other members couldn't make it, so we went ahead and did it ourselves, setting up the p.a., lights, and everything. It was gratifying to do that because I wasn't sure we were going to be able to pull it all off, musically or technically, alone. It had it's rough spots, but was generally ok. I also have fond memories of some of those Davenports shows playing with my friends Scott Schwister, Melissa Veys and Mike Koehn. They were my best friends in the world and it meant a lot to be doing something I believed in so much with them.

Scott: A punk band I was in during the late 70s once played at a campus party for Northwestern University graduate students. They hated us -- which led us to crank it up and play the most screeching, ear-grinding material we knew, just shove it in their faces. Immature? Yes. Fun? Absolutely.

SCS: Most embarrassing moment in a live show?

Tery: I don’t really have any real embarrassing moments. I guess there's one that could have been embarrasing, but actually turned out to be pretty cool. About 3 or 4 years ago Creatures of Habit was playing a show down in West Virginia. I was pogoing all over the stage, and I hadn’t noticed that between when the previous band played and we played, someone had moved the bass head off the top of the cabinet and onto the floor in front of it. At one point, I pogoed backwards into it and fell backwards, knocked over the bass cab, fell into the drums, taking out the hi-hat, crash cymbal, and snare, thumped my ass and hip on the kick drum. I ended up on the floor with my feet still up over the bass head and cab, but I still kept playing the whole time, didn’t miss a note, as did the drummer with what he had available. As soon as the song was over and I got up, the crowd when nuts. It wasn’t supposed to be one of those intentional Kurt Cobain jump into the drums things; I didn’t get hurt or anything, but easily could have. I felt like a tool when it was happening, but I guess it looked way cooler than it actually was. Nowadays in Lincoln, we refer to that move as "Pulling a Pat Bradley"

Dan: Nothing dramatic. My band does a lot of acapella vocal harmonies, which can be trouble if you're not really tight. You kind of hold your breath and put your bare ass out in the air every time, knowing that if you fuck it up, the whole place will know it; there's no guitar distortion there to hide the sins. So I guess my embarrassing moment would be one of those times when the harmonies left something to be desired and the whole place knowed it.

Tery: Have you guys ever considered actually putting your bare asses out in the air during a show, that would probably bring more people to your shows.

Scott: I once neglected to re-tune between sets only to discover, with the first strummed chord of the first song of the second set, that I really, really should-have re-tuned. I had to pretend to play for that whole first song. Probably no one knew but my bandmates, but boy, they knew.

Tery: John Lennon & George Harrison used to do this thing to Paul McCartney before The Beatles would go on stage, As they'd be walking toward the stage on of them would distract him, and the other would untune his bass, sometimes one string, sometimes all of them, so when they'd go out and kick right into their first song, he'd just sound like crap. For the most part since no one could ever hear them and they couldn't hear themselves, it didn't really matter and was more of an inside joke. Those wacky moptops! Actually, they were frequently doing it maliciously because they kind of thought of Paul as a pompous ass, even then. George & John referred to Paul as "Beatle Ed" behind his back.

SCS: Who was the first person or band you saw that made you want to play music?

Dan: The Beatles and Beach Boys, and then seeing Trip Shakespeare live. But Brian Wilson is pretty much it for me. Everything else is details.

Tery: It’s probably a toss up between my Dad, and seeing The Beatles on TV as a little kid. My dad had learned to play when he was a teenager, and he was a really good guitar player, I loved to listen to him play. The Beatles played music, and girls wanted to have sex with them for doing it. Who the hell wouldn't want to make their living that way? I used to love to watch stuff like Wolfman Jack’s Midnight Special or Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert in the 70's. That was when I was still young enough that I still had a “bed time” which was certainly before midnight. My mom would come and wake me up to come out into the living room and watch the bands if she knew it was someone I’d want to see. Saturday Night Live in the 70’s had great bands on, Getting to see Devo for the first time doing “Satisfaction”, Elvis Costello pulling a "Hendrix on Lulu", Peter Tosh & Mick Jagger doing “Walk & Don’t Look Back” together.

Scott: Those darned moptops in my case too, but as I said above, the Ramones gave me the courage to actually give it a go.

SCS: What's a "Hendrix on Lulu?"

Tery: Lulu was a British singer/actress who had a variety show on BritishTV in the 60's. Hendrix appeared on her show, and his band started playing "Hey Joe", but shortly after starting it Hendrix stopped the band and instead launches into a cover of "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream. When Elvis Costello made his first appearance on SNL, having seen Hendrix do it, and thinking it was cool, he did the same thing. Also when Hendrix did that on the Lulu show, he was supposed to come over to the couch to be interviewed after the song, but he just went on and on playing for so long that played until the shows was supposed to end. The unprepared and astonished BBC techs just ran the closing credits over the band playing and ended the show. I wonder how long the band went on playing after they were off the air?

SCS: What was the first album/CD you bought?

Tery: I can tell you everything. The first record I ever received as a gift was the 45 of “Space Oddity” by Bowie for my 6th birthday, because I absolutely LOVED that song; the first single I ever bought myself with my own money was when I was 10, it was “Daniel” by Elton John. The first albums I bought myself was in 1974; it was “Eldorado” by Electric Light Orchestra and “Abbey Road” by The Beatles. The first CD I bought was in 1987, it was “Out Of Our Idiot” by Elvis Costello, and I bought it before I even had a CD player. As I talked about earlier, because my mom and sisters were Beatles fans, and fans of other British Invasion type stuff, we had a bunch of Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, The Beau Brummels & other stuff like that at home, and when I REALLY got into them which was probably in like 3rd or 4th grade, I took all those albums from out by the stereo where the “family” albums were kept, and put ‘em in my room and they became mine from that point on, and I played them, and several subsequent copies, until they turned to dust.

Dan: The first 3 records I purchased myself were (I don't remember the order) the Donny and Marie Osmond variety show (which I watched religiously every Fri. night at 7), Shaun Cassidy's "That's Rock 'n Roll" and "15 Big Ones" by the Beach Boys. And I'm really not embarrassed about any of those anymore. There's some great songs, and certainly vocals, on those records, and I banged my drums to them for years. Soon after that I got into ELO's "Discovery" from my brother Chris' influence.

Scott: Revolver. It's been downhill since there.

SCS: The most recent?

Tery: Hmmm, I haven't bought much of anything recently I've been too busy, but, Actually Dan has turned me on to a lot of great, if not necessarily new bands. The Records 2nd album "Crashes" was just re-released on CD, and I'm digging the hell out of that. Actually, I thought the depth, width, and bredth of my knowledge of Pop Music, Power Pop, Indie Pop, and any of it's various other guises was pretty extensive, but Dan has me realizing that I'm wading in the kiddie end of the pool. He's turned me on to so man great bands I'd never even heard of before. I've only come up with two bands so far in my collection that he hadn't even heard of. It's hard to stump Dan.

Dan: Thanks, Tery. Well, lots of what I've listened to in the last few years has been as a result of hanging around with Randy Watson and the Return, Dan Kaspari, Charlie Burton, etc. The last great thing I bought was the ep by Lansing Dreiden, and lately I've just been filling in the gaps in my Beach Boys and Beatles collections. No record collection is respectable w/o the entire catalogues of those two bands.

Tery: I think I only own "Pet Sounds", "Smile", and a greatest hits cd by the Beach Boys. I know all their early stuff in great detail, but don't feel the need to revisit it very often, you can turn on the radio and hear it pretty frequently, and that's enough for me. Richard Rebarber and I are pretty much in synch in our opinions that the early surf stuff doesn't hold up to well song wise. Arrangment wise, and production wise it's all fine, but until you get to stuff like "Warmth Of The Sun", "Don't Worry Baby", or even "Help Me Rhonda", you're not really seeing any spark of genius. And besides Mike Love blows!

Scott: I'd like to second that emotion; Mike Love does, unconditionally and without reservation, blow. Last albums I acquired were _Before the Poison_ by Marianne Faithfull and the Faces box set, both of which I like. My album-of-the -year for 2004 was Nick Cave and the Bad seeds' double, Lyre of Orpheus/Abattoir Blues.

SCS: Anything else you're listening to lately?

Dan:The new one from Jeffrey Foskett (Brian Wilson guitarist), A.C. Newman, Homespun.

Tery: Now that you mention it, thanks to Jeff and Dan (Rempe who plays guitar in The Master 8000 ) I'm on a Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass kick. My parents used to have "Whipped Cream & Other Delights", "The Lonely Bull" and a few other of his albums when they came out in the late 60's & early 70's, and I used to hear them a lot. The stuff is all just catchy as hell! All his stuff is out of print, not available on CD, and really hard to find, and Jeff found a bunch of the original 60's & 70's vinyl at a garage sale or something, and Drunky digitized it all, and shot me a disk. I hadn't heard any of it in years, and I'm really enjoying it, it's like running into an old friend you haven't seen in 30 years.

SCS: What are your top records of all time?

Tery: Damn, that’s too hard, there’s just too many OK, off the top of my head I’ll give these: