Floral Terrace may be a new young band from Haverstraw, New York, but their sound is already honed and better than most of the new music coming from the scene today. The band is currently on tour with Under Spinning Lights for a few more days and will hopefully be on the road much more throughout 2011.
For Fans Of: Valencia, pop-rock

*Responses from Justin Olori

How did the band come together? How have you grown since you guys started?
The lower Hudson Valley music scene in NYC is a literal breeding ground for bands. on the local side of things bands are reforming all the time. George and I were in a slew of not-so-good bands and John was into the touring thing and basically anytime John’s band played at home we opened. It started as john “managing” us and helping us out and eventually we asked him to just play with us. It was a good blend when we came together because we kind of had a grasp of thing locally and nationally. Since then we figured out the incredibly important details of what kind of music to even play, and how to perform it live! We all really wanted to rush into the scene and join the ranks and originally didnt plan out how too well. There’s no rule book for this career path and looking back on 2008 when we first started, we can see the flaws clearly from back then. 
 
What do you have to offer that other bands don’t? What sets you apart from a lot of the other newer bands out there today?
something weve noticed especially last year in 2010 is that everyone seems to enjoy the fact we keep it real. a lot of bands kind of roll out with this facade and conduct themselves this way or that way. Although we have no qualms with the bands that do, i feel like these days the crowd/listeners have a huge problem with it. I think it bums certain people out and if the majority rules then a band gets stuck with the issue. I think that has a lot to do with some of the bands breaking up left and right. Not only is it because of financial issues, but these bands are suffering financially because they’re all a few years old and everyone’s found out theyre bullshit.
 
How is the live show compared to the general sound of material that’s been released?
With FT we dig the fact that we’re kind of a traditional band with no gimmicks on stage and we go into the studio with producers/musicians and make the best recordings possible. i think its going to give our band the ultimate staying power in the long run. When we got done recording our debut EP with producer Jim Wirt back in october, he sent us a rough mix so we could start nailing it on tour. It sounds pretty spot on like the recording but a lot of clubs dont have adequate sound to give it that huge feel that Jim got in the mixing room. Lots of times nothings mic’ed and my monitor mix is shit/crap? 
 
More times than not, influences tend to bleed through. What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
We have a lot of influences that went into this cd. It starts on an immediate level with the bands we tour with. the morning of, just surrender and rock bands weve gotten to see live often always inspires us and helps give us our own vision. We also dig watching some poppier bands live like the ready set and breath electric, we envy the way those guys get the crowd amped. My favorite band is bayside, johns is 311 and george is probably taking back sunday and just surrender. The combination of watching all our friends live and whats on our ipods is definitely relative to our new Ep. 
 
What would you say the band has already accomplished and what do you have your eyes set on next?
We’ve made a ton of amazing friends and payed a lot of dues. Weve accomplished gaining a fanbase and travelled a lot. the recording studios and people we worked with on songs has been crazy awesome already. Jeremy from the scenic, sergio and chris from thieves and villains, rob freeman, jordan and tay from we are the in crowd and max from washington square park have all either helped us work on songs or gave us some constructive criticism thats wound up helping us out so much. weve had some wicked low points but never really let it get us too far down unless we were drunk. Our eyes are now set on touring california and the far west coast and also heading to the UK, japan and australia. if youre in a band reading this lets go! haha 
 
Thus far, what’s a favorite memory or something quirky that’s taken place with the band (in-studio, onstage, or elsewhere)?
I wouldnt say favorite, but .. one time we were driving on rt 66 in missouri and it was hella scary as it is. For fun we yelled like.. “hey!” or “hey tommy!” and some guy walking down the highway who def looked really scary. Our trailer tire blew 2 minutes later and we had to crawl 5 mph off the exit and were worried the guy we yelled at would catch up with us…good times! 

Is there anything in particular that you’d like people to take away from listening to your music?
None of the members in FT are head song writers by any means, so the song writing process is involved and thorough. 
we try not to have too many songs sound the same or be about the same thing. Also, we have a message of some sort in every song. So, i hope people either find the message or theme we were shooting for, or interpret their own lesson or story out of it. 

Check out Floral Terrace on Facebook, Purevolume, and Twitter.