Meet Morning Wars

This story appears in the October 2017 issue of Jerk Magazine and was written by Lydia Herne.

Members: Marc Ramos: vocals, producer, piano; Trevor Chesler: bass, vocals; Noah Mintz: guitar; Ben Friedman: guitar;

Sounds like: Neon Trees, Young the Giant

What they Jerk to: The Killers, Hippo Campus

Active Since: 2016

Jerk Magazine: Has music always been a big part of your life?

Noah Mintz: I was raised on all sorts of music, my dad was in the music business for a while, and that kind of opened me up to a world of alternative music.

Marc Ramos: In fourth grade, I picked up the trumpet, then the next year the tuba, and played the tuba for eight years, and did a whole bunch of musical theater after that. In college, I went on to do my own thing, but music has always been a big part of my life. Look out— there may be a tuba solo on the next album!

Trevor Chesler: I grew up going to Coldplay shows, and big arena events, so I got acclimated to those music environments. From a young age I started playing music. I play the piano and was taught by this lady from a church, [but] she only wanted me to play super simple songs. Then I picked up the bass and have been playing that since I was 10 years old.

Ben Friedman: For me, my sixth grade music teacher told me I was the next George Gershwin so that’s about it.

JM: What inspires your music?

MR: There was a teacher that I had in a script writing class I took. He always said, “You should always write from what you know.” You don’t wanna make something up without having done the research. Personal experience definitely plays a big role.

JM: What does the future look like for the band?

MR: This year we’re going to just focus on making as much music as possible. For the future it depends, I’d like to keep it going.

TC: We’ve had people in the music business tell us they fuck with our sound and they want to hear more. So I think it kind of depends on when we drop everything, how it hits. If it hits, then hell yeah!

JM: What’s the origin of your band name?

TC: So I’m in history class freshman year, one of those huge lecture hall classes. Everyone’s on their computers, no one gives a shit. Then the professor starts talking about these things called Mourning Wars that Native Americans used to pull on settlers.

I put it in my list of band names that I have in my phone, and that was just the coolest one. We changed it to “Morning” for a happier feel.

JM: Have you played any gigs? Are you looking to play any in the future?

MR: We played our first gig last semester, that’s how Ben got in the band. We have our EP in production so we kind of want to focus all our time on that, to make it the best it can be. Not to say we won’t play shows in between, but after we get this EP out we’re gonna be playing shows every weekend.

JM: Additionally—

BF: Yeah I’ll say it; we need a drummer. Right now we have a computer playing for us, and he’s great but he never shows up live.