An Inspired Chat with Marc Schuster of DelCo

We recently had the chance to connect with Marc Schuster and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Marc, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I love playing bass in my band, DelCobras. We’re really excited about our new EP. It’s called New Skins, and we’ve gotten a lot of comparison to bands like Weezer, Green Day, and Blink 182. The band consists of singer/guitarist Jim Lorino, drummer Nick Cervini, and myself. We’ve been playing a lot of shows in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties, most prominently Delaware County, “Delco” for short, which is where the band got its name, which I like because it shows some pride in where we come from and has a fun punky edge that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Like a cartoon motorcycle gang or a little league baseball team.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
We started DelCobras earlier this year when two members of our previous band decided to part ways with us. It wasn’t dramatic or anything. There were five of us in a band called Scoopski. Kate, who played keyboards and sings, is actually Jim’s wife. She just didn’t like playing in dive bars, and I can’t blame her. We also had a second guitarist named Jackson Vincent who wanted to move on to work on his own music. But the three of us — me, Jim, and Nick — wanted to keep playing together, and we decided to come up with a new band name to reflect the change.

In terms of genre, I guess you could say we’re a power-pop band, though we’ve also been described as pop-punk. What really makes us “pop” is that Jim is an expert music arranger who’s heavily influenced by the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and Nick is an incredibly inventive drummer. I’ll often come to them with a few verses and a chorus, and they’ll flesh the song out with an intro, a bridge, and a pre-chorus, and they’ll really bring my bare-bones ideas to life. It’s fun to see a song grow like that.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
It’s funny, the word “release” has a couple of different denotations, and for musicians it often has to do with music. And in our case, the release of our latest EP is also, in some ways, a kind of letting go. All of the songs on the EP had former lives. Jim wrote and released a version of a tune called “Caffeine” a few years back when Scoopski was a home-recording project, and I’d been carrying a pair of songs called “Someday Soon” and “West Philly Bedroom” around with me since the 1990s. That’s actually why we called the EP “New Skins.” The idea is that, like snakes, the songs are shedding their old skins and renewing themselves. It feels good to release them out into the world.

What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
I’m not sure if I’d call it a “defining wound,” but someone on social media described our music as “girly.” It’s such a weird thing to say about music–or anything for that matter. I grew up with four sisters, so I know girls are cool, smart, and resilient. If that’s the best someone can throw at us in terms of an insult, then I think we’re moving in a good direction.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
The music industry is incredibly invested in numbers. Spotify, in particular, tries to make independent musicians focus on the number of streams their music is generating, but I don’t think that’s healthy or even especially relevant. Sure, music, like anything, can be a business, and some people can stand to make a lot of money at it. But that’s not the corner of the industry we’re playing in. We’d rather reach a few hundred people who will get something out of our music than a million who will just have it on in the background and not really notice it. Streams don’t matter. The number of followers you have on social media doesn’t matter. What matters is human connection.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
That’s kind of the whole point. When the guys and I go down to my basement to record or rehearse our live set, the goal is always to make the music as good as it can be. Not because anyone’s watching or listening, but because we love what we’re doing. That being the case, why would we give it anything other than our best effort?

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Jersey Wall
Christian Pflaumer
DelCobras

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