The Treats, a Madison trio, was formed in 1999 when bass player Tom Payne joined with guitarist and lead vocalist Andrew and drummer Don Isham. The brothers Andrew and Don welcomed Payne and the three have been cranking out their tunes since. All three are engineering majors who hold degrees from the UW but are more comfortable with their blend of power pop and rock than with TI-86s. The Daily Cardinal recently interviewed Don Isham and heard about the band's beginnings, their current difficulties and why they enjoy playing in Madison.
Are you aware that if you accidentally type instead of , you end up on a prescription drug Web site?
No, I'm not. That could be a nice link though. It could be a party favor I guess.
You guys call your music 'power pop.' What makes it power pop?
I'm not sure. We're kind of rock 'n' roll with pop influences and kind of punk too. There's also blues, hard rock and psychedelia influences in there.
Who exactly were your influences?
The Beatles were probably the biggest one. My brother Andy and I, who write the songs, are both into them a lot. Also Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Oasis. Then there's some new stuff like White Stripes, the Strokes, Vines.
Have you noticed your influences changing in the four years you guys have been together?
Definitely. The newer stuff has, of course, influenced us over the last couple years. A lot of it is more simplistic rock, and I guess that's kind of nice for us also because we're all fairly new to our instruments. We've kind of learned together and we've only been playing for four or five years. We try to get a song that's carried more by melody and groove than trying to make it too complicated. That's kind of what a lot of newer rock is.
Could you say how you and Andy met up with Tim Payne?
We lived over on Orchard Street in '99. I was playing drums and Andy was playing guitars and we just messed around at night. After a few weeks, Tim knocked on the door but nobody came to the door so he just came upstairs. He knocked on the door and we opened it up and there's this huge guy who kind of surprised us. We thought he was going to complain because we had people throwing eggs at the window.
Andy was injured recently. [He fell off a roof.] Is his recovery going well?
He's walking now. It's been like five or six weeks. He had knee and wrist surgery. The knee is recovering pretty well, the wrist is still questionable. The wrist was pretty much shattered. Time will tell as far as that goes. He'll be doing a lot of therapy. It's been about a month and a half, but he's losing a lot of weight because his jaw was pretty messed up. We're hoping we can play again.
About how soon?
Maybe two months would be great, but, again, time will tell.
Do you think you'll be playing more shows around Madison then?
We had to cancel a lot of great opportunities. We had a Luther's show a few days after the accident that we had to cancel. We had couple things in Chicago that [were] pending.
What do you particularly like about playing in Madison?
You can kind of play on a whole different bill on any given night. There's a lot of original music out there-I think more than in Milwaukee. I think in Milwaukee more people cater to the cover bands. In general, people here are more into stuff that's original. That's what we're into. On any given night you can go out, pay five bucks and see three different bands. It's great.
What's your relationship with WSUM?
It's been great. They play a lot of local music and mix it in with some well-known stuff, so it's cool.
What can someone look forward to in a live show when you guys get back to playing?
A lot of energy and sweat. I think we put on a real dynamic show. Some people may not like it, but I like a lot of variety in a show instead of 45 minutes straight of punk tunes. It's nice to jump around a little bit. That's kind of what we do.
