Boston’s own trio Perhaps has had a whirlwind year. Since the release of their debut album Volume One in September the band has toured the US nonstop and have been chosen to play with math rock heavyweights Giraffes? Giraffes! amongst others. Their music is a continual flow produced with vintage gear, order and often accompanied by brass and string musicians. Volume One defies labels in equal progressive, buy psychedelic, bluegrass and jazz parts. About to embark on their third full US tour and record their second album, I had the chance to speak with bassist/ringleader Jim Haney on vintage gear, music influences, and the new standard for math-rock language.

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Cailey Lindberg:  So, I see that Perhaps has had a lot of praise on websites devoted to progressive and math rock since the album was released? How do you feel about the things that have been said?

It’s great. I’m glad that anyone has listened to our music enough to form an opinion about it, and then care enough about that opinion to write it down and share it with other people.

You’ve even been called “a new standard for math-rock language.” That is a huge compliment… but do you agree?

It’s definitely a huge compliment. That being said, I don’t really know what it means and I don’t think it’s true. I don’t consider Perhaps to be a math rock band at all. We like to throw all kinds of different styles together and see what happens. There are parts that come from old psychedelic and progressive rock, parts that come from jazz, parts that come from bluegrass and everything else. If we are the new standard in something, it’s probably not math rock.

Tell me a little about Volume One, what inspired the continuous flow of the album?

It was just an attempt to make the kind of album that I’ve always wanted to hear. I’m not sure if we succeeded or not, but all of the main ideas are there. I wanted the album to be one really long song, because some of my favorite albums are one really long song, so I wrote one. I wanted it to be recorded live to tape, because some of my favorite albums were recorded live to tape, so we did that too. If we wanted to add some weird part or a crazy effect somewhere, we just did it and didn’t think too much about it. I love improvisational music, so we did a lot of improvisation on the recording. Whatever happened that day is what you hear on the album. There aren’t many bands these days that are willing to take those risks, so I guess that someone has to do it.

It seems the album is moving fast, you’ve already been chosen to play with the Japanese cult favorites Acid Mother’s Temple on Tuesday.

Acid Mother’s Temple is one of my all time favorite bands. I am honored to have the opportunity to share a stage with them. So many cool opportunities have presented themselves simply because we make the music that we genuinely want to make and are willing to go out and do the work. I feel lucky because so many bands are doing the exact same thing that we are and aren’t getting any of these opportunities. For instance, in the six months since we released the first Perhaps record we’ve gotten offers to play with Damo Suzuki from Can, Acid Mother’s Temple, Giraffes? Giraffes! and Hawkwind. I have looked up to and respected all of these bands for a really long time. And it actually makes sense for us to be playing with these bands because we have such similar styles musically and a similar fan base that gravitates towards weird music.

What do you think that your fans will gain from being able to purchase a cassette or vinyl LP?

I have always really liked LPs and cassettes. So when people offered to pay for us to make vinyl and tapes I gladly accepted! We can’t really afford to press our music on these older formats, so the fact that someone else liked the music enough to put it out is the reason why it is able to exist in these formats.

Do you feel that the “pay as you want” model will aid the album?

It’s just a formality. It’s a nice way of saying, “this is free.” We all know that no one pays for music anymore, myself included. If I didn’t pay for an album by a band I know and love and have been a fan of for years, why on earth would I pay for an album by a band I’ve never heard of? The only people who actually make money off of album sales in the first place are artists who are tremendously well known and popular, and all of the people who helped to make them so well known and popular. It’s an amazing situation because literally anything and everything is available for free to everyone all the time. No one has to pay for music ever again. Unfortunately for musicians, making an album takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. If making money is someone’s main priority, being a musician is probably the worst thing that they could ever do. So, because making money is not my main priority, if someone happens to find our album on the Internet, I’m more than happy to let them download it for free. And if by chance they decide to donate a few dollars in the process then that’s even better.

I saw so many influences listed on your band page that I just had to ask, whom wouldn’t you consider an influence?

Even terrible bands/artists/musicians are an influence because they show us what not to do. I definitely wouldn’t be making the kind of music that I make if I didn’t hate certain types of music as much as I do. Fake and boring music teaches you how to make genuine and interesting music; you wouldn’t know one without the other. Also, things that aren’t music at all are influences on the music you create. For instance, random events from your childhood, a certain meal that you really enjoyed, and other memories all influence you in small ways as a person and therefore influence the way that you approach music.

One influence I saw listed was “Boston.” How do you feel that Boston has inspired the music you’ve created?

There are just so many people in Boston whom I consider close friends that make incredible music. There’s a group of like-minded people who are constantly encouraging each other and working together to make things happen.

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