'I Like to be Challenged': Philly Rock Duo Perform in Palmyra

Circle of Friends presents another intimate performance later this month, when Philadelphia rock duo John & Brittany perform on Saturday, May 18, at Muse Tattoo and Art Gallery in Palmyra. 

John Faye, 46, is a former member of the Caulfields and IKE and has been performing for the better part of the last 30 years, while Brittany Rotondo, 22, is a relative newcomer to the local music scene.

The pair, who have been performing together for roughly the last two years, have put out two albums—a six-song EP and their first full-length album, Start Sinning, released in January.

The two have quite an interesting backstory. They sat down with Patch recently to talk about their experiences—as performers and as individuals—ahead of the show.

____________________

On how they got their start

Brittany: "I got my first guitar when I was 19. And that sounds so cliche and cheesy, but I really didn’t learn until about a year later ... I caught a lot of local shows around town—that’s kind of how it started. Then I became friends with a lot of musicians, and I was like, 'I wanna be them.'"

John: "I always had an interest in writing from the time I was a little kid. But I didn’t really play an instrument until I was 14, when I learned the drums. For me, learning to play an instrument was always kind of a vehicle to kind of have an outlet for writing. My first interest as a 10-year-old was writing dirty song parodies. When my mother found my book of dirty songs, she yelled at me and made me throw it away, and I had to switch paths."

On their musical inspirations

John: "It all started with the Beatles … Punk rock—the more musically adept versions of that, like the Clash."

Brittany: "The Beatles. My grandfather (Raymond) got me into Bob Dylan. That kind of just catapulted me into this world of music ... My grandfather taught me everything I know. He's amazing. And I tell everybody he’s a musical guru in every which way."

On how they met

After Brittany contacted John initially online (way back in the days of MySpace), they met up after a show he performed with IKE at World Cafe Live.

John: "I just kind of knew from our first conversation that she was a one in a million person, and I didn’t know exactly how we would know each other, because she wasn’t a musician at that point. I knew nothing about her ... We’re hanging out and it’s 3 in the morning and our first conversation, we just dive right into all this stuff about great bands, which I would not have expected her to even know about because of her age … Life and death and all this."

Brittany: "No BS."

John: "She just impressed me. When you meet a new person, you either get that feeling from them or you don’t. I just thought that she was interesting, and in a confusing way too, which is cool. I like that. She continues to confuse me. I like to be challenged, and I think she does too."

On their creative process

John: "Pretty shortly after our first meeting, I began to check out some things she had posted online. She had all these copybooks of all these things she had written, and she basically just let me read through everything, which was a very trusting thing. The first few things we collaborated on, I just took the pages out of the book and started singing the words and put music to it ... Soon after that we were just hanging out and playing guitar, and she was learning, but she was also being real creative."

Brittany: "We’d go to friends' houses and they’d all be watching a movie and I’d be like, 'Let’s go learn. Teach me a chord, teach me something different.' It’s still kind of that way when we write together."

John: "We started to write songs where it was truly collaborating. A lot of the songs started to be like, she would write most of the words, but maybe I would add a verse or a bridge where it was needed, and then musically, we would incorporate a lot more of her ideas. Some of the things she would come up with are not rooted in what a teacher would tell you makes sense, so you get this feeling of discovery ... Nothing about it is ever completely easy."

Brittany: "Either we fight tooth and nail, or we’re completely in sync. And that’s not even just for songwriting—that’s for absolutely everything."

On what makes their act unique

John: "There’s no reason we should know each other. On paper, you would not take these two individuals and say, 'Oh, they’re gonna be best friends, and they’re gonna have this really cool partnership, and this really cool band.' It’s ridiculous."

Brittany: "But I think that’s what’s so awesome about us. Because we’re from completely different backgrounds and lifestyles, completely different ages."

_____________________

Doors open for John and Brittany's show at Muse at 7 p.m.; the show begins at 7:30. Tickets are $19 and can be purchased online here.

For more information about John and Brittany, visit their website here.