Mar 13 Feature – T-Shirts for Tomorrow

Like a lot of bands, T Shirts for Tomorrow originated with two friends playing acoustic guitars in a basement. And, like a lot of bands, members came and went as the number of instruments increased. Eventually, someone got a drum kit, then an electric guitar, someone else plays kick-ass piano, and before you know it, you’ve got a band.

In 2008, Ethan Gilbert (vocals) and Brandon Preece-Rose (drums) were those two friends in a basement, and as I talk with them today, their “basement” is in Fort Collins, at a little studio called The Blasting Room. “We both liked to play guitar,” says Gilbert. We really didn’t think anything cool would come from it. After Brandon got a drum kit, and I got an electric guitar, we blew up his basement for a while, making loud, awful noises. [Then] we added piano and bass and started writing stuff that sounded like the Fray and Ben Folds Five, but Brandon and I wanted to get a little heavier with it.”

Getting from where they started to where they are now came with a handful of member transitions. Now comfortably unified, T Shirts for Tomorrow consists of Gilbert, Preece-Rose, Joe Fox (bass), and Jeremy Silva (guitar).

States Gilbert, “Almost two years ago, Joe came in and started playing bass, and about four months ago, Jeremy joined the band.” Adds Fox, “After Higher Ground (Music Festival), our old guitar player took a job with Lockheed as an engineer. Ethan posted on Facebook that a friend’s band was looking for a guitar player, and Jeremy commented that he might be interested.”

“Once Jeremy came in,” said Preece-Rose, “he just upped it a little bit more. He threw down the riffs we always imagined.” Adds Gilbert, “We’re all a bunch of jokesters, we like pranks, and we have a very perverted sense of humor. We had auditioned a couple of people, and Brandon, Joe and I—just to break the ice—wanted to make it as awkward as possible, just to see if people could hang. When Jeremy got there, Joe kissed me on the cheek, just to see how he’d respond.”

“I didn’t know that,” says Blevin.

“We told him to learn to covers before he came in,” says Ethan, “which he didn’t.”

“I’m the type of person, I don’t like learning covers. This is the first band I’ve ever played a cover in,” says Silva. “And we love covers,” interjects Ethan. “May Day, Blink, New Found Glory . . . Jeremy left, and we auditioned another kid, and it just wasn’t the same. Immediately when we played with Jeremy, there was a connection. We all got along, and we played well together. It was right.”

And the name, T Shirts for Tomorrow? “Ethan and Brandon were practicing. Brandon’s mom put his clothes on Ethan’s amp, and when they started playing, the clothes fell off. Brandon said, ‘Hey man, that’s my t-shirt for tomorrow,” says Fox. “It just stuck.”

Now they’re back in the Blasting Room, recording their second effort, Miss Forever Alone, which is also the name of one of the five tracks on this CD. “A lot of people say that they’re ‘forever alone,’ that there aren’t people out there for them,” says Fox. “But in reality, there are people right in front of them. It’s not that there’s no one out there for you, maybe your personalities just differ. That’s how it translates for me. Also, it was the first song we wrote all the way through with Jeremy.”

“I wanted the message to be, ‘Don’t take the people around you for granted,’ says Gilbert, who wrote the song. “Especially guys and girls, when they’re looking for that relationship, they set their standards so high. But if you take the time to look at all the amazing people around you, you realize that you just need to enjoy the people already in your company.”

Recognizing that each person has something unique to contribute to the band is something they’re proud of. While Gilbert writes all the lyrics, he says, “The music is a culmination of all of us; we’re all influenced by different things. Joe likes jazz buzz/funk bass, Brandon has a country background, Jeremy has his unique influences, and two of my biggest influences are Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson.

“Instead of having one composer with other artists just going along with what the composer is saying, we all come together to make something that we—the four of us together—love,” says Gilbert. “It’s our souls to bare for the audience, not somebody saying, ‘Oh, I’ll play this because he told me to.’”

“That’s one of the reasons I was so stoked to be a part of this,” says Silva. “Coming from another pop-punk project, and seeing pop-punk bands starting to fall off, there was really only one [band] who was resilient through all of the member changes. Everyone plays a specific role in the music structure. Not only are these the coolest dudes I’ve met in awhile, they really, truly, made me feel like I found a place to write the music that I want.”

T4T is fairly specific on the impression they hope to leave with their audience and fans. Says Gilbert, “We want people to leave and be like, ‘Wow!’ It’s happened to us a couple of times. We saw Go Radio and Yellowcard, and it was such an experience. You know the songs, but seeing them live . . . how they are on stage, and the experience they create, it changes your whole perspective. Literally, the next day, I wanted to go in and quit my job and say, ‘Sorry, I’m only playing music.’

“You never know if there’s a young kid [in the audience] and it’s his first concert. We want to be those people who inspire them to pick up a guitar. And we’re all about making that personal connection. We don’t ever want to be that band where, we get off stage and we go chill in our van,” says Gilbert.

“We’ve all had that experience of meeting a band, and having high aspirations of what it would be like to talk with them, and getting a sour taste after it,” says Silva. “You still love their music, but that always sticks in your mind. Like, ‘Hey have you heard that new album? Yeah, I remember that one time he was a dick.’”

“On the flip side,” adds Fox, “we all got to meet Go Radio; and apart from the fact that they’re all amazingly talented musicians, we were the locals on that show, and we talked to their drummer for almost four solid hours. They were the coolest dudes—we hung out in the green room with them, and they talked with us about touring and management and labels, and it was a turning point for us. So that’s how we want to be.”

They have an endorser (Monster Energy) who gives them guitars at some of their bigger shows. They, in turn, give them away to the young kids at their shows. “Who knows,” says Gilbert, “maybe after that show they’ll pick up a guitar and think, ‘Man, that was so inspirational, I want to do this.’”

“Yeah, I think all of us can name our first album and first concert,” says Fox. “Mine was From Under the Cork Tree, and oddly enough, Sister Hazel.” “Further Seems Forever, Chris Carrabba,” adds Silva. “My first rock concert—because I was all country before rock—was Green Day, American Idiot.” Gilbert’s first “venue concert” was Maroon Five at the Fillmore. “He’s [Adam Levine] such a good performer, you get lost in his voice, and you take for granted how good he is at guitar. That’s what influenced me to want to sing and play guitar. The other was Intermission. They were a local band, with Brandon Whalen (My Body Sings Electric). It was the first band he was ever in, and I saw them at the church in Arvada with Synthetic Elements. That was, literally, the first concert I ever went to.”

“Our first EP was The Outside Looking In,” says Fox. “We recorded that here (Blasting Room) with Andrew Berlin, aka Vanilla Nice. It was a really good mile marker in getting to where we are now.” Adds Ethan, “The first time we tracked [up here], we were all in that nervous, ‘We’re in the Blasting Room,’ star-struck state. Andrew and Joey (Barba) really eased our nerves, and taught us a lot about writing, and just making sure things were interesting from start to finish. They really helped us turn the curve into making better music.”

Miss Forever More was set to drop this month, but T4T was asked to tour for a month with Dangerous Summer, starting on March 3 at the Summit Music Hall. . Congratulations to T4T for landing their first legitimate tour, and finishing their CD.

Look for the release after their month-long tour; of course we’ll keep you posted when it drops, and if you see these guys hanging out after their set on the 3rd, say hi! Take them to Denny’s for breakfast! “The only time we’re serious is when we have to go the restroom. Practical jokes are fine, but not when anyone is using the restroom, or sleeping,” says Fox. “But if you fart on someone’s pillow before they go to sleep, that doesn’t count,” interjects Preece.

All jokes aside, their main goal, according to Gilbert, is “for people to know that we’ve been through [a lot of the same] things that other people have been through. We want to be the soundtrack for how people feel.”

Online: tshirts4tomorrow.com

by Jenn Cohen