A few weeks ago, the pop punk band Bonfires played at the Miramar Theatre. Opening up for The Millenium and 4 Door Theatre, they were also accompanied by The Stolen and Green Screen Kid. Not only was this my first interview, but it was also my first time attending a show at this venue. My friend and I waited outside for about fifteen minutes before Brad Harvey, who plays guitar and does vocals for the band, met and brought us to a room within the venue. We then waited for the band’s drummer, Kevin Provencher, to join us for the interview.
Have you played a show in Milwaukee before?
Brad Harvey: it’s been a little while actually, but we’ve played a handful of shows in Milwaukee. I think the last time we were here we played at Borg Ward.
Kevin Provencher: Then before that we did a bunch of house shows in the Milwaukee area.
If you had to describe the Milwaukee music scene and the crowds in one word, what would it be?
Harvey: We haven’t played here in a while, but when we were playing up here more actively we were again in the house show scene so there were a lot of hardcore bands or emo bands.
Provencher: I remember the first house show that I played here somebody stage dove on top of my drum set. It was cool, and it was really fun actually.
What is your favorite song to perform live? Why?
Provencher: For me it is definitely Sympathy off of our new record. Tempo-wise it’s actually pretty slow, but I feel like it’s one of those harder hitting songs and it’s pretty fun.
Harvey: For me it’s probably Walls. It’s upbeat, it’s kinda loud and it’s just a fun one to play.
You recently released your newest EP “A Reason to Get Home” this summer, how was the songwriting process for this any different than in the past?
Harvey: Generally, when we write, it’s usually that someone has a base idea and we bring in all the tracks and we build off of it from there. But for this EP, a lot of it was actually small ideas that I had demoed out onto GarageBand on my laptop and brought it to everyone else. It was kind of the same thing where we polished it all off and built it up from there and eventually added lyrics to it. I know one of the songs, Colorblind, was one we had for a little while. We originally put that all together completely at a practice one day, from scratch to finish.
Provencher: And “Colorblind” is actually really cool because it was the first song we released off the record and it was also the first song written. We didn’t necessarily write it for the record, but it ended up being on there. We did some preproduction and stuff and we were actually just listening to it the other day and it sounds completely different. It’s cool to watch songs that you play for a while actually grow into what it is in the studio.
Seeing as how you are from Chicago, how receptive has the city’s music scene there been in regards to the new EP?
Harvey: Pretty good. The last time we played in the Chicago area was in August and that show was good. But back in July we played a show that was even closer to where we’re all from, and this was maybe a month after we only released the single which was “Colorblind” and even the response to that song alone in our set was just a lot more than we expected.
Provencher: We always think it will take some more time than it usually does. Well at least for this one, we thought “Alright maybe it will take a while for it to catch on. They’ll be more into our old stuff.” Like he said, we released the song maybe a couple weeks before that show and people were already singing along.
Harvey: Yeah, it’s cool. Like he kind of said for a lot of fans and a lot of bands, they usually release a new song and it takes a little time for the fans to give it a good handful of listens and really start to learn the words and make that connection with the song itself. I feel it’s kind of rare that new music pops off quickly for bands, but thankfully so far the EP has done fairly well for us. We’re super thankful about that.
If someone has never seen your band live, how would you describe your stage presence?
Provencher: We all have really different stage presences actually. We like to say that Nate is very noodley when he plays and he moves his legs a lot.
Harvey: Me and Kevin just bang our heads a lot. I don’t know, we just like to have fun. That’s probably the best way to describe it. We’re all different in certain ways.
Provencher: We like to rock and have fun, that’s about it. If you like to do either of those or both together, we’d say we could sell you on a show.
At the end of the day, what is your favorite thing about being on tour?
Harvey: Honestly, playing the shows. Driving is cool. We obviously go to places we don’t really get to see very often, and that’s really cool too. But the whole purpose just getting do something we enjoy every single night. Whether it’s to 10 kids or to a hundred, it’s just like playing music is a release for all of us like with our stresses of our daily lives.
Provencher: It’s cool to go from practicing once a week to playing a show every night. It’s definitely cool not to be at work right now.
After this fall tour, what’s in store for the future of Bonfires?
Harvey: After this tour is over, we’re going to be taking what’s left of the year and just writing. We’re going to be in the studio recording a couple of songs in December. Those should be out shortly after the new year. Other than that, just writing songs, playing shows. Just keep on keepin’ on basically.