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Corker's particular breed of post-punk is frenetically monochrome, and on their sophomore album, Hallways of Grey (Feel It Records), the group finds themselves in even sharper vignettes than before. Led by Luke Corvette and other Cincy renegades, the group pushes venomous, turbo-charged rock 'n' roll to new levels of complexity and sophistication with intense explosions of madness, injecting a quality of freshness for those bored with all the Henry Rollins-approved bands. To dig deeper, we chatted with the group about recording the new album on a family farm, collaborating with fellow Queen City rockers, and the horror of pre-show anxiety.
First, tell me what you've been up to lately. What have you been listening to, reading, watching, or spending a lot of time doing?
Luke Corvette: 2024 was a bit of a slow one for us to say the least, we all kind of took more time to ourselves this year. Whether it be participating in full-time jobs, playing music with other people, or simply sitting at home. Personally, I've been doing a lot of writing, both words and music. Though I haven't had much of a home for a couple months now, I'm looking forward to feeling grounded once more and to make things whole again.
Ryan Sennett: I’ve been practicing drums and riding my bike a lot more lately, both of which have been really rewarding and fun. Working on the next Drin record. Exploring the Mill Creek. Been into puzzles too.
Spencer Morgan: Lately, I've been staring at the wall and smoking cigarettes. Listening to a lot of Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Martin Rev, and Psychic TV. The last book I read was a collection of poetry by Arthur Rimbaud, A Season In Hell/ Illuminations.
For readers unfamiliar, tell us about the origins of Corker. How did you all meet and decide to start making music together?
LC: Corker originally started with me, Alex [Easterday], and Ryan [Sennett] in 2020. Easterday and I grew up with each other, and embrace the fact that we are each other's only friends that survived from our adolescence. We've been playing music together for over a decade. I knew Ryan previously from seeing him at shows, having very few interactions before inviting him over to Alex and my house to work on music. Coming out of the pandemic with our EP, we decided to add another guitar for live shows which is when Cole [Gilfilen] came into the picture. Similar to Ryan, Cole was basically a stranger before asking him to play with us. Though we didn't know each other all that well, when the four of us got together it just made sense. There weren't a lot of people our age at the time (or that we knew of) that shared a similar vision and more importantly just, "got it." Finally, Spencer [Morgan] became a good friend within the Corker crew in 2022. He already played drums in the bands Axed and Catastrophic Dance Ensemble (consisting of members from Corker in each) so it was an easy decision to ask him to join Corker when we added synth to the live vision.
Cole Gilfilen: Playing in an angular, guitar-driven band was pretty foreign to me at the time. I'd spent most of my days back then recording lo-fi, '90s rip-off, half-baked demos in my room. I was sort of frustrated trying to find any clear direction musically at the time and decided I wanted to join a band. I met Luke at a party in 2019 and without knowing him very well, I sent him a message on Facebook asking if he'd be interested in starting something together. He told me about his new project called Corker and that he was looking for a guitarist. I'm pretty sure we met up for a practice a week or two later and that's where I met Ryan for the first time and became good pals with him and Easterday. It was equally intimidating as it was exciting to play in Corker in the early days. I remember minutes leading up to our first show, having to take three or four tiny shits just to shake the nerves. That problem faded pretty quickly though and I no longer need to do that to get on a stage. A nice lager seems to do the trick.
What's changed for Corker over the years and how would you say you've evolved over the span of releases?
CG: I think Hallways of Grey is our most collaborative effort thus far and it’s been nice to see everyone in the band chip away a little more at their individual strengths and styles as we get older. Adding Spencer to the mix has been a great addition. He was the missing piece to make our live sound feel the way we wanted it to.
LC: I believe we all understand a bit more what it is we want out of being in a post-punk band in the modern age. We have more intent in our decisions than before, even if that means we take longer to make them.
What insight can you share about Hallways of Grey and how it came together?
LC: Following a successful tour in January of 2023 and the excitement of our debut coming out on Feel It later in the year, we were living off of a high the first half of that year. We were writing a new track or messing around with a new idea every time we would get together, probably the best momentum we had ever had. Spencer joined somewhere in this time frame, and having a dedicated person on synth made it a lot easier to envision what we were striving for. We had so much time before Falser Truths debut and we didn't feel like touring again until it was out so we decided to try and record another one in the meantime. I think a lot of bands can be guilty of putting off recording, especially when booking studio time. Then Cole had the idea to go to a farm in Indiana that his family owned and just record it ourselves. We quickly found a weekend that worked and went our way. It felt good to record the tracks while they were hot, something we'll try and do again.
About recording on that farm, what was the experience like? Do you think the pastoral setting affected your sound?
CG: The freedom to plug in the amps and play loudly outside is liberating, to say the least. We spent three days out there tracking all the songs live in a garage, and during the nights we'd drink and record long drawn-out rockabilly jams or swim in a nearby pond. I probably have four hours of recordings that were jammed after the hours of 2:00 a.m., including an awesome Link Wray attempt at "Rumble," and maybe a shitty cover of a Tom Petty song at some point or something like that. The recording setup was very sparse and I think you can hear that on the record. Nothing fancy. Just using what we had which were some cheap mics that were probably poorly positioned on the drum kit. No isolation of amps or anything like that. I feel more comfortable tracking an album on my own time rather than someone else’s, you can relax a bit more mentally.
RS: One of the best weekends I've ever had in my life with four of my best friends. We went swimming in the pool and the pond, played with the animals, rode four-wheelers, and stayed up late getting drunk and jamming. One night I cut my foot real bad on a piece of glass or something in the pond and the boys were real sweet and took care of me. I think the relaxed setting there at the farm may have affected the sound in some ways or rather the quality of a take.
Diving into some of the songs here, what can you tell me about "Night Ride"?
LC: That was an older demo I had made and was actually the first song I ever recorded on a 4-track, a Tascam Porta 03 MKII. There are a good amount of Cincinnati punks that share a love for riding bikes, and sometimes we get good groups together. This track was specifically written after one of our late-night rides, and more or less an anthem for those who feel the call to do so. When we learned it as a band it became a whole new beast and quickly turned into a favorite of ours to play live. I occasionally joke about the song being about Easterday, him being the biggest bike enthusiast in Corker by far, but also because of his love for corner stores which inspired the lyric.
"Distant Dawn" first previewed the album back in January. What led to this one being the first single?
LC: It was our way of telling people a second record was on its way, though not knowing when it'd actually be released. We had a show at Empty Bottle coming up as well, and we thought it'd be a good idea to have something new to offer. The songs off the new record had already taken up most of our live set at this point as well. "Distant Dawn" felt like an appropriate single given its name.
CG: I made the demo for it in my apartment one afternoon. I had the vocal melody in my head so I laid it down, trying my best to sound like Luke. I imagined he would take over vocal duties on the final recording but this was not the case.
RS: I came over to Cole's tiny old apartment one sunny day, I think in the spring or summer of 2023 but I could be wrong, and he played me a song he'd just recorded and asked me to put a bass track on it. I thought it was great and had never heard him sing in that style before. Remember loving the song right away. Eventually, it got thrown into the mix at practices and everyone had a chance to make It their own a bit. By the time we got to the farm it was really tight, don’t think that one took too many takes.
Angie Wilcutt (Artificial Go, ROD) contributes vocals and lyrics to "Forever Silent." What was it like to bring her into the mix?
LC: We've been good friends with Angie for what feels like a long time now, so you could imagine that we were pretty stoked about her and Micah's move to Cincinnati. I had originally done vocals for the track, but I wasn't happy with them. I was inspired by Angie and Cole's recent jams (which would later result into the creation of Artificial Go) and asked Angie if she'd be interested in laying some vocals down with her own words. As we had expected, her voice complemented the cold and moody instrumentation. The experience of collaborating was so easy and natural, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of it in the future.
RS: Angie is amazing. Really creative and doesn’t hold back at all. I don’t think I was present when she put down her vocals for that track but obviously, she did an amazing job.
What's the story of "Nothing in None"?
LC: It's the only song that wasn't fully written before heading to the farm, we jammed on it for some time before settling on what you hear. It was also the only track that we weren't sure about being on the record at the time of recording it. Cole had brought the idea originally, and I had a hard time finding a voice for it. The overall tone of it was pretty foreign to me, but I found something that worked. I think it stands as a good outlier now, with a familiar chorus ringing it in. The housing market is a joke.
RS: If I’m not mistaken, I think that was the last track we did on the farm. I think we hit it like a million times super late into the night on our last night there. I was very drunk and stoned. Cole’s mom and stepdad came in as we were getting close to finishing it up and we all did bourbon shots together.
You recorded "No Necessities" back in 2021 with fellow Cincy stalwart Dakota Carlyle. What led it to join the end of this album?
LC: It was a track that I had written during the same time I was writing all the other early Corker stuff, but this one was clearly an outlier and Dakota helped bring it to life with his analog gear. It sat unreleased as nothing for a long time, never with any intention to be a Corker song. But at some point, I had tried to bring "No Necessities" to Corker with the idea to make it something of our own, but after multiple attempts nothing really stuck. At one point we had tried to implement a drum machine into the live mix, and I remember us all looking at each other like, "This ain't us." So we never came back to it, until I toyed with the idea of using it as a little bonus track. Everyone was into it.
What were the inspirations behind the cover art?
LC: We are all big fans of Angie's film photography, so we hit her up to take some updated photos of the band for the new record. I had followed Achilles' (CHUTSKASE) work for a while and asked if he would have any interest in working on the artwork for the record. He immediately replied and got to work right away. He sent me multiple designs with one of them using the photos Angie took of us and it's as simple as that. It's cool to think that the photos taken for the record are right outside Lambda Research, which has been home to many of our friends as well as a venue, practice space, and gallery. Highly recommend working with Achilles and Angie both!
Is everyone in the Cincy underground music circuit really in two to three bands at the same time? How do you manage to schedule everyone?
CG: Many people in Cincinnati do play in multiple bands. It's exciting to see which combinations of which individuals make which sounds and whatnot. Cincinnati is a small city that wants to do more than it can probably take on. Similar to our schedules.
LC: Life can get in the way sometimes but I think you'll find that there is always time to make it all happen if it's your priority. It's just being on the same page with everyone, especially after years of doing it, that can be the challenge.
Luke, you also play in Good Flying Birds. What's that been like?
LC: Incredibly refreshing. Everyone in the group is a lot of fun, forever grateful to have met Kellen [Baker] and be asked to play music alongside them all. It's easy to get jaded sometimes within your own scene, never thought about how easy it'd be to just go and invade another one. If you don't mind the driving that is, but you quickly get used to it. The days I go and practice or go play a show in town I get to cosplay and hang as a local. What's better is no one has any preconceived notions about me, nor do I have any about them, so I get to just enjoy meeting everyone on my own terms. The music itself is a ball of joy too, I'm getting to play chords on guitar that I forgot I knew.
What's your plan for the Corker tour in January and beyond?
LC: Heading South for a change, or at least further than before. We always try to hit a few new cities if we can. Should have it sorted out soon.
RS: Playing a lot of new cities we haven't been to before. I'm really excited to see New Orleans, I've always wanted to go and we scheduled it so we'll have an off day there. I'd also like to go back to the farm to pump out the next record over the summer. We've all been pretty busy this last year, looking forward to writing new songs together.
Any advice or last words you'd like to share with our readers?
LC: Eat your recommended amount of fiber. From food, not supplements.
SM: Do not get stuck.
Hallways of Grey is out now on Feel It Records.