In Conversation with Tom Freeman of Covey
Meet Tom Freeman, the face behind the band known as Covey. The group has recently kicked off their US tour in support of Heart Attack Man, along with Arm’s Length and Blood Root. Catching Tom for a moment between shows, he shares the ins and outs of tour and some insight to new projects in the works.
Tom Freeman by Szonia Nemes
How does it feel to be back on the road?
“It feels really good, I was nervous for this tour I think because the last tour with Summer Salt and Breakup Shoes was so much fun. I cried saying goodbye to those guys, we had become incredible friends. I was nervous to come on this tour to see what the dynamic was like. It’s kinda hard, we’re only 3 days into this so we’re just starting to get to know people, but it was the same way on our last national tour, where you kinda get to know each other as you go through! Especially because there’s 4 bands on the bill. But to answer your question, I am very very happy to be back on tour, I want to do it more and I want to be on the road constantly.”
The line up for this tour has been much heavier and different from your last tours, how has that change felt?
“We’ve been talking about this actually in the car because yeah, we’re generally the stray rats on tour, because we’re kinda in the middle of heavy and not heavy. We’re always kinda like wildcards on the bill. There’s definitely heavier bands than us, we’re kinda wedged in-between Arm’s Length and Heart Attack Man which are both really heavy. But, I feel like dynamically it doesn’t really affect us, because I feel like we reached Arm’s Length’s intensity in our set. But then, we also come down and that’s kinda what Blood Root does too. So it's like a dynamic of up and down and then Arm’s Length blows everybody’s hair back, then we kinda go up and down and then Heart Attack Man finishes off. It’s actually quite nice, it’s a great great great bill.”
Do you have any new music that you’ve been working on?
“Yeah, I have a new record that I’m demoing at the moment, since I haven’t put anything out in like 2 years. I’ve been writing through quarantine and have like I think 40 demos, but I have to pick out my 10 favorites or whatever. So as soon as I’m done with this tour, I’m going to be getting into the studio and putting out the follow up to Class of Cardinal Sin.”
I know that you’ve always had a theme for your albums, do you have a theme or concept figured out for your next one? What about the artwork?
“Yeah! That was the thing I kinda (thought) ‘how am I gonna follow up Class of Cardinal Sin front cover with all the stories?’ I’m basically continuing the story because the record prior to that connects to the story, and Some Cats Live, Some Cats Die album cover also connects. Haggarty loosely does too through the fox, but for this one I just continue the story, the stakes are getting higher than just the school and the students. There’s a much bigger world that surrounds the school and that’s kinda what I’m going to be going into with this next record. I'm going to introduce a more prevalent antagonist to the whole universe, kinda explain the story even further. The visuals are going to be exactly telling that story. It's not going to be miniatures this time, all the videos are going to be extremely dark and cinematic, and the visuals are going to be very much like Some Cats Live, Some Cats Die kinda feel. It's gonna take place within a house and each room has a series of clues that are going to be all over the walls like little necks and things like that. Ciphers to crack and codes, every single picture is going to basically be clues to the story to be able to figure it out before it actually comes out. I’m hoping the vinyl will be like a fold out but like fold out 4 or 5 times so you kinda have this big span out of the images. It’s going to be fun, I’m really excited for it. I’ve been working on it with an amazing cinematographer, Matt Marino, and we have been really digging into the story. We were stuck on it for a little while, we were stuck on connecting things because we mess with time a lot in the next story line. We were just trying to crack the way to do it.”
I’ve seen on your social media that you’ve been selling disposable cameras at the merch stand, what kind of stuff have you documented for your fans?
“All behind the scenes and this kinda stuff, where we are sitting in the room now, if we’re hanging out, trying to catch people in it as much as we can but also trying to get some scenic shots. Trying to get shots inside the van, trying to get at least one of those on each camera so people can see what it's like inside the van. If we stop at some of our favorite spots like last night, someone gave us an Airbnb and it was ridiculous, for free as well and it was like this insanely nice house so we took a photo of that too. We’re basically just documenting the trip. It’ll have the past maybe 2/3 days on each camera. But I think we are going to speed up in a minute because I really have enjoyed the premise of selling these cameras and having them be a memory for a fan to develop if they want to. We are kinda doing something similar with cassettes too, every set we are recording. I haven’t even mentioned this on socials and stuff yet but yeah. There's just a cassette recording in the back of the room so right before our set I get some to hit record and we give away that cassette to whoever wants it first at the merch table.”
Has there been any other new fun stuff you’ve been doing on this tour?
“We’ve been doing the cassettes but I don’t know, I need to figure it out more. I want them to go into the hands of people who are going to care for it, somebody who has known the project for a while who will cherish it. We always come up with new things when going on tour. Last tour we had a pinata! We like to build things as we go, make characters. We have a mannequin that’s by our merch table that’s called Chad. We always try to have fun things as we get on the road – like the teeth!”