All you boppers out there have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for the next rendition of TEEN BEAT and it’s finally here. This time I went and talked to the first non-Nashville band to be featured in here – don’t worry though, I didn’t go too far. Went and dipped our toes in the Murf-hole to talk to Mom & Dad. We’re sure most of you are pretty aware of them by this point since they’ve been playing in-and-around town for the last few months and they’ve released a couple online albums – Pieces/Parts and Cave Art, but we’re hoping that this might give a little more insight to the minds of M&D. The guys have a brand new split-7″ coming out for Record Store Day this year and you can get a nice preview of it down at the bottom. Add it to your list of everything else you gotta pick up on April 21st…

Television Addict: What are your names, and what do you play in the band?
Zach Prosser: Zac. Mainly playing guitar and singing. Sometimes I’m the coach.
Corey Cummings: I play the drums.

TA: How long have you been a band and how did it get started?
Zach: We’ve been making music for about two years now and started playing live together a bit over a year ago. I started working at a record store where I met Corey. When you work around music a lot it’s just perfectly conducive to having long discussions over records, recording techniques and all that stuff.  The first time Corey came over to my place he found this shitty old Pearl set I had and fell in love with it. I kept telling him a hollowed out pumpkin probably would’ve sounded better but I couldn’t dissuade him from using it. We started recording on to tape immediately and had all this material by the end of the month. We didn’t have a name or a website or anything, just hours of tape.
Corey: I had never played the drums before when Zach and I started playing together. It happened on a whim one night. He and I had always talked about music and then we just decided to start playing one night. We started recording that night and then a year after that we gathered some other folks into our circle and called it Mom & Dad.

TA: What was the last show you played and what’s the next one?
Zach: We’ve got two really exciting shows coming up we’re totally stoked for; Tour De Fun on April 14th and the Zombieshop on Record Store Day with some of our buddies/favorite bands.
Corey: The last show we pretended to be Velvet Underground. It was a really killer night.

TA: Ok, three songs you’re really into right now…
Zach: Royal Headache – Psychotic Episode

The Kinks – I’m On An Island

Bad Back – Dan

Corey: D’Angelo – Untitled (How Does It Feel)

Blood Orange – Dinner

Ranch Ghost – The Water

TA: What are your plans in the next 6 months?
Zach: Touring, recording another full length, eating awesome food and swimming in the ocean.
Corey: Summer Schoolin’,  recording, going on tour and playing basketball.

TA: What are your plans in the next 25 years?
Zach: Cashing in all those bets with people that said they’d never have kids probably, as well as hopefully being a cool, well educated dad myself.
Corey: Expanding my drum kit to 42 pieces and releasing my solo record Snared Straight.

TA: What bands have you been in before Mom and Dad?
Zach: Zillions. One of the most fun being Knife Head; a heavy metal opera with my milk brothers  Daniel Pujol and Lex Bearden.
Corey: This is my first.

TA: How does it feel to be the first band from The Murf featured on Teen Beat?
Zach: It’s definitely an honor! While we’re all southerns, none of us are actually from Murfreesboro so other than Todd, we’re all transplants really. Being a band in Murfreesboro has it’s advantages; clean streets, welcoming crowds and we’ve played in some great houses/basements there. Of course Murf has it’s curses as well. Being the college town it is, trends in music and art fads catch on pretty hard. Murfreesboro houses a lot of great musicians but people generally don’t linger too long and shoot out into other areas pretty fast.
Corey: It feels very nice. Although I’m crossing my fingers that this will open some doors to Tiger Beat, Teen Vogue, Seventeen and my personal favorite J-14.

Check out the new track “High Art” above and grab it in the flesh and blood on Record Store Day. Like they mentioned earlier – they’ll be playing a show that night at The Zombie Shop so you’ve really got no reason to not pick it up. The track is also available as a part of this year’s Tour de Fun mixtape. You can download that right here. And don’t forget – if you’d like to be featured on TEEN BEAT – you can email us at teenbeataddict@gmail.com and tell us all about yourself.