From left: Mathias Laubert, Cherie Laubert and Ryan Lewis. (Photo by Nestor Diaz)

Despite their acrimonious name, The Mean Season has an inviting and familiar appeal. For starters, the guitar riffs from Mathias Laubert and Ryan Lewis sound like they’ve been borrowed from ’90s indie-rock staples, but distilled to their most essential parts. Furthermore, singer Cherie Laubert can belt if the need arises, but more often, her voice sounds like an amplified whisper. She almost sounds as if she’s revealing some secret — or at least some greater insight. As such, it may surprise you to hear that none of The Mean Season’s lyrical content comes from personal experience. Laubert writes most of her songs at the National Portrait Gallery based on what she sees and hears. She should continue this strategy. Lyrics like “Who decided it was a perfect symbol for love?/It’s just an organ pumping your blood” from EP opener “Hearts” sounds simultaneously like common sense and poetic truth.

We talked to The Mean Season about using a whiskey bottle as an instrument, writing solely about strangers and being heckled by other bands sharing a bill.

Find them online: themeanseason.tumblr.com

Get their music: soundcloud.com/themeanseason

See them next: At the Black Cat on Sunday night for their EP release show.

How long have you been a band? Or at least, how long have you been in bands together?

Mathias: Me and Ryan have been playing together for well over 10 years now.

Ryan: Or 45.

Mathias: Well, certainly over 10.

Ryan: But closer to 45.

Cherie: We’ve been in this band for about two years.

Mathias: It’s only been a year.

Ryan: It just feels like two years.

Mathias: We were all in a band prior to this for about eight months.

What was that called?

Mathias: FMRM.

What are you doing differently with The Mean Season?

Ryan: It’s a lot simpler. We don’t have a drummer so we all play the drums. It just kind of depends on the song.

I was wondering why you guys had a three piece drum kit.

Mathias: We would like to say “Less is more” but really we don’t know how to play drums, so the less we have to mess up, the better.

Ryan: And, this is more about her songwriting and vocal range.

Speaking of your songwriting, your band’s website bio talks of your writing lyrics while staring at art in the National Portrait Gallery. Could you speak more on that?

Cherie: I work across the street from the Portrait Gallery and I don’t write about people that I know or myself so I just write about things that I see. So, I go over there probably three or four times a week on my lunch break and just look at art and write about that.

Wow. So you’ll write about the art or about people that you see while people watching?

Cherie: Or things that I hear. If I hear people say something, I’ll write about that. But never about anybody that I know.

Is that a conscious decision?

Cherie: Yeah. I don’t want to write about anyone I know.

How did you all come up with the band name?

Mathias: That’s always a weird question.

Cherie: There’s a movie called The Mean Season, too.

Ryan: With Kurt Russell.

Mathias: It’s a pretty awesome movie. I think it was one of those things, though, where we toyed around with different names for awhile just thinking about them not going by them but when we came across this one it was just one of those things that clicked.

Ryan: They lived in Florida for awhile, too.

Cherie: Yeah, it’s a period of time in Florida where the weather is really awful, so we kind of liked that idea.

Mathias: And we’re all kind of mean. I guess on a bunch of levels it kind of makes sense.

I know you guys played the show for Black Cat staff. Ryan, do you still work at the Black Cat?

Ryan: No. I worked coat check once last year.

Cherie: That’s how we qualified…We did it the year before, too. There were a lot more bands the year before. This year, there were probably like, five bands.

Ryan: I think that’s probably why we got in.

Mathias: I mean, for it to be a Mainstage show and for there to be four bands, I thought it was a pretty decent show. Especially for all local bands.

Are you not used to seeing good turnouts like that for bills with only local bands?

Ryan: There are some local bands that get quite a turnout.

Mathias: It’s kind of hit or miss, though. It’s hard to say depending on the night of the week and what band it is and what kind of following they have.

Ryan: The Suns of Guns show we went to — they played Montserrat House — that had a really good turnout.

Have you gotten many chances to play outside of D.C. or is that still in the future?

Mathias: We played two shows in New York. They actually went really well. The second show had a really great turnout. It was kind of an anniversary thing.

Cherie: It was at the Cake Shop.

Well, your next show will be your EP release show. The four songs on that EP…

Mathias: Five songs. There are only four songs on the soundcloud that we put up. We have one more acoustic track that we put on it. It should round out the song pretty nicely.

How did you decide on those four songs?

Ryan: Maybe those songs were more accessible.

Mathias: I think they would be received by a wider audience better…I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to say.

Ryan: I think it was just easier at the time.

Mathias: We had been playing those songs for quite some time.

Cherie: Except for Kurtz. Kurtz was pretty new. We recorded three of them at the same time and then went back and recorded Kurtz later. Then we recorded the acoustic one even later.

When was this?

Mathias: We did the acoustic track locally in January. The other four tracks we finished up in September in New Jersey.

How did you end up choosing someplace in New Jersey?

Mathias: We were pointed to him — he has a studio in his house — by another guy we got in touch with. We showed him some of our stuff and we really liked the feedback that he gave us.

Ryan: He drinks a lot of tea. He never wears shoes. I never saw him wear shoes. And he has a lot of candles. I liked him.

Cherie: He knew what he was doing.

Mathias: There is nothing wrong with anything you just said.

Have you had any shows that you’ve particularly enjoyed?

Ryan: We had two impromptu shows that we weren’t supposed to do. Those were fun. One of them was with Oh So Peligroso. We went to go see them. It was at Velvet. While we were on our way there Mike from Oh So called me and Nestor [Diaz who books at the Velvet Lounge] called me and they were like, “Can you open?” We didn’t have any of our gear and we actually use a whiskey bottle as part of our drum kit. So, we’re like “We kind of need an empty booze bottle.” Plus, I don’t do anything without a bottle of booze on hand. So, we ended up doing it. We didn’t have to load in or out. We used other people’s stuff. It was kind of rock star. We didn’t have to do anything.

Cherie: The second one was at the Black Cat with Oberhofer. It was backstage. Vickie called us three hours in advance and asked if we could play because the other band got stuck in New York. That one was really fun, too.

Mathias: That was a great turnout.

Ryan: So, yeah, when we’re not supposed to play…

Cherie: …we do really well.

What are you listening to right now?

Ryan: We listen to a lot of Les Savy Fav.

Mathias: A lot of Les Savy Fav.

Ryan: I have my own Les Savy Fav channel on Pandora that I listen to at work. I got into them ten years ago I think and the new album is pretty good. Outside of that, I listen to a lot of the Pavement. 1994 was a good year.

Cherie: We played this one time with this band from New York and when we were done the drummer came up to us and was like, “You listen to a lot of Modest Mouse, don’t you? You listen to a lot of the Pavement, don’t you? Yeah, you do.” And then he just went away!

Ryan: We do. Lonesome Crowded West, I really like.

Cherie: I tend to listen to a lot of female singers. I like Kate Bush a lot. And Kimbra.

Mathias: Outside of that, I guess it’s kind of eclectic. A lot of Paul Simon. That’s always a staple in our listening.

Ryan: I’m trying to think of what else. Maps & Atlases.

Cherie: Not the new album.

Mathias: Medications. Another local band.

Ryan: And Faraquet.

Cherie: We’ll just keep naming bands!

How was recording the album different from performing live?

Mathias: We were able to incorporate more parts like layering guitars, vocal melodies and a bass which we don’t play live.

So is your normal live lineup vocals, guitar and whatever percussion you use?

Ryan: For the most part.

Cherie: Are there any songs where there are no drums anymore?

Mathias: “Sunshine and Lollipops.” We do a Leslie Gore cover. Some of those videos on Youtube are our very first show. Hopefully, we’ve matured a bit.

It sounds like the instrumentation is a little different.

Mathias: We’ve developed that a bit.

Ryan: I have an amp that works now.

Cherie: They both have new guitars. We still have a $40 drum kit.

Mathias: Our most expensive part is the Jameson bottle.

Cherie: It’s $90. $50 is the Jameson bottle.

Mathias: The price of the bottle is only like, $10 now that we’ve had all the Jameson.

Cherie: But, the price we paid.

So, with that Velvet Lounge show, how did you end up getting the Jameson bottle. Did they just have an empty Jameson bottle?

Cherie: No.

Ryan: The only thing they had was Malibu.

Cherie: And you had to drink it.

Ryan: Abdul was like, “I’ve got this. If you can drink the rest of it, you can have it.” It was terrible.

Cherie: And then we didn’t even use it because the glass would’ve broken.

Mathias: Malibu sounds horrible.

Ryan: It sounds horrible as an instrument.

Mathias: It’s just a bad idea.

Cherie: We only played four songs.

Mathias: Without our gear it was hard to play more of our songs.

How did the whiskey bottle become a part of the instrumentation?

Mathias: Well, he drinks a lot at work. With the original drum kit we purchased, the kick drum had an arm for a tom. But, we never had a tom so we were looking for stuff to stick on there. There was an empty Jameson bottle. The rest is history.

Cherie: But our first Jameson bottle broke and we had to get another one. And drink all that.

Mathias: I think there was a deadline, too, because the warheads are quite large – like 1.5 liters. So we bought it seven days before a show and had to knock it out. Which did not take seven days. At all.

Dare I ask how many it took?

Cherie: We don’t remember!

Mathias: It was only the three of us. It was probably only about three days. We like whiskey.