Chompie: Yeah, we know what you’re going to say. He’s a giant, inflatable, five-piece mascot and he isn’t even in D.C. But Discovery’s Shark Week is one of the great summer traditions, and for its 25th year, Chompie, the mascot to eat all other mascots, made his tremendous return to Discovery Communicatons’ headquarters over downtown Silver Spring.

When the name Shark Week started appearing on bills for local shows our initial thoughts were, “Great band name or greatest band name?” Then again, we might love education posing as blood and gore just a little too much. Still, with such a name, we half expected an equally gory hardcore outfit. Then, upon seeing that it was fronted by Sugarcane Crawl’s shambolic frontman (and celebrated hair stylist) Ryan Mitchell, our expectations changed a little. Sugarcane Crawl shows were the sorts of shitshows wherein instruments and furniture might break. Mitchell still has an extremely high energy persona, but backed with the much bluesier elements that guitarist Eric Myers and bassist Danielle Vu provide, it’s a more interesting ensemble performance.

We talked to Mitchell about the influence of the blues, finding inspiration while walking and inhabiting a different persona onstage.

Find them online: http://www.facebook.com/sharkweek

Buy their album: On iTunes or at http://sharkweekdc.bandcamp.com

See them next: Tonight at Montserrat House with Blackberry Belles, Jeremy Teter and BROS. $8.50, 10 p.m.

I feel like prior to Shark Week you had taken a kind of hiatus from doing band stuff.

I think I was just spending a lot more time out of town and was deciding if I was going to be staying here. I would kind of do one off shows or play with some friends but I definitely got out of playing for awhile. I’d play with Matt [Hemerlein] or with John and Paul [Thornley] and maybe we’d do a couple shows here and there, but more one off type things. Definitely not as a band thing at all. That was fun but I think I was just kind of traveling. I love doing music so it’s fun to be active and doing more and it seems to be going well. People find it palatable so far.

You definitely also have an onstage persona that you’ve cultivated.

Yeah, I think I definitely do that. It’s not so on purpose. I’m still honest, I don’t try to be a character, but at the same time it’s still a different mindset. I guess when you’re playing, your job at that moment is as an entertainer. There’s a lot of facets to doing that. There’s a lot of roles. There’s a lot of things you can do. But I definitely try to do that. Or it just happens, whether or not I try to do it consciously. Short answer, I agree. There’s a stage person and a non-stage person.

Is that something that had been inspired by other performers or did that come from within?

Not to say that I’m not obviously inspired by other people’s stage shows but it’s not very premeditated at all. But, I definitely notice it. One, any nuance — like, if I’m annoyed by something — it channels in such a different way. Third person, stepping out of it I’d probably be like, “Oh, that’s not the way to handle it.” But if anything goes wrong when we’re playing, like if they say it sounds bad, I might throw the guitar off and walk outside a few songs in. That was one show in particular where that happened. But, I can get annoyed really easily. But only if I was in — not that state — it would be easy to own that. But, for good or worse, it kind of works. Obviously, not to be throwing a hissy fit all the time. But, it’s just a different thing. I get in a mindset. I think I get into the character of the songs more. They come from a specific origin. If I’m writing a song and it’s coming from one dimension. I’m usually considering one aspect of something, so I’m writing it from being pissed off at something or not. There’s a character in that which is one of many of what every person has. Not to be so literal. So, while playing maybe it works best if you embody that a little, or if you’re coming from that point of view of where you wrote the song or where the character is or what’s being said.

So, do you find that you’re writing songs when you’re in an extreme of an emotion?

To be honest, almost every song we have starts off when I’m walking somewhere because that’s when I’m bored. So, if I’m walking somewhere, I’m always like, “Oh yeah. A few minutes.” And that’s when ideas will come to me and I’ll work on it later or I’ll pretend to be on the phone and I’ll voicemail it while I pretend to be on the phone so I don’t look weird singing some song. That’s the melody and whatnot but when I actually get to writing it, maybe I’ll just be playing around with words or messing around with it. Then something will catch and I’ll just follow that. I guess the three that we’re doing for the EP are definitely specifically heightened. One of the songs was about this wild summer. I had gone down to New Orleans and spent the rest of the summer in San Francisco and it just got wild and out of hand. It was fun, obviously, but dealing with the repercussions of coming back from that and shit changing and where that spot was — that was me reflecting on that in whichever way. Not that it’s a very deep song or anything and I don’t know what that emotion or that heightened sense would be but there definitely was one of some sort. I think if something good comes out of something it’s when there’s a heightened emotion or something triggered you in a certain state. When it comes to you organically because it’s inspired by a certain situation you’re in, it clicks. You can sit and try to write something and it’s not going to come but when — pop — it hits you — you can find a whole flow of stuff that you’re writing about in any form. The songwriting is mildly heightened or state generally but it can be any sort of emotion. When I’m mad, or when I’m upset or when I’m going through a breakup.

It does seem the the Shark Week songs have more of a blues influence than what I’d remembered.

It could go either way. With the old band we did a lot of takes off twelve bar stuff and we’d mess around with it, so there was definitely some basis in the blues but at the same time, I don’t know that it was channeled well. It was having fun and being noisy more than anything. Which kinda still happens but the musical proficiency of the people I’m playing with now is higher. Like Eric, he’s really good at guitar. I’ve always been really sloppy which is fine with me, I like it, but I think maybe before I was one of the more proficient musicians. So, if I was the more proficient and talented one, that was a bad sign. But they are really good and have it on lockdown so I can be a screwup and they keep it together really well. So, that’s why if there’s a blues influence or whatever influence, it shows up more now because we’re tighter. These guys can play really well.

How did the four of you start playing together?

It started out with Andrew Bucket and I saying, “Let’s start a band called Shark Week!” And we’re like, “Cool, we’ll be an all girl band!” So, the idea was to be an all girl band besides me and Bucket. So, Haley Dolan was gonna be in it. She’s like Bucket if Bucket was a girl. And this girl Danielle. She likes good music. So, I hit her up and she said, “Yeah, I have a bass.” Then, at the time we started playing with Riordan Tenney. He played the drums. Haley and Bucket never showed up. So, we were like, let’s just do it without them. Danielle was like, “I have a friend who’s pretty good at guitar.” So, there’s Eric. And Riordan had to end up quitting to focus more on school and we found Dan who is a really good drummer. He’s super musical, too, which I think usually drummers need tone. But, he’s really good. It just kind of fell together.

Was releasing your EP during Discovery Channel’s Shark Week an intentional move?

Oh yeah. Well, we recorded a couple of months ago and it was just taking awhile to get everything together and mix it well. And the goal was that we need to have it by the weekend that Shark Week starts.

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