Interviews by Uma & Dan: One Time Weekend

The Connecticut Rock / Jam Band Breaks The Mold

Rock / Funk band One Time Weekend on groovy songwriting, playing unique instruments and hitting their stride

The Connecticut-based jam band is starting to make its mark on the New England scene with its high-powered musicianship, deep groves and a focus on being true to their own unique sound

You always roll the dice when going to see your favorite band, but not knowing who the opening act is.

That’s what faced myself and Uma last month when we headed up to Portland to catch a show from the Scottish powerhouse trio High Fade. The opening band was called One Time Weekend and walking into the venue, we knew literally nothing about them.

But even before the show started, we should have known they would be special. Uma was fascinated by the stage set up, which included not just the traditional drum kit, but a bongo/chimes set up as well.

To say One Time Weekend blew us away is an understatement. The five-piece rock / funk / jam band out of Connecticut powered through a 45-minute set of original music that was catchy, loud and infectious. We were fans a minute after they started playing.

It’s hard to put your finger on what, exactly, One Time Weekend plays. They describe themselves as progressive rock, but there’s a lot of other influences in there from punk to shred to jam metal. I’d even argue there’s a bit of twangy country, especially in bass player and lead vocalist Ian D’Arcangelo’s delivery.

Uma and I have always been attracted to music that crosses genres and boundaries and One Time Weekend certainly does that.

So, when we ran into Ian after the show and Uma immediately had him sign her band book, I knew we’d be doing an interview with them.

Shot of music reporter Uma Szczesny getting some video of One Time Weekend at Portland House of Music

Be aware, the band is coming back to Portland House of Music as a headliner on Thursday, April 3 at 8pm. We won’t be able to make that show (come on, guys, on a school night!?) but you definitely should! Here’s a link to buy tickets, which are at the utterly preposterous price of $15. One Time Weekend at Portland House of Music

The band currently doesn’t have any physical CDs available, but all their music is available on virtually every streaming platform as well as Bandcamp where you can actually purchase it and most of the money goes to the band. They are also on Nugs.net. Plus, they do something very unique to young bands - they record and film ALL their live shows and make them available to download. For example, I picked up the MP3 of their Portland show that we attended!

The band’s website is here: One Time Weekend

So, the interview you’re about to read has a bit of a different format than a normal one we do here at Day By Day. Because both Uma and Dan were asking questions, and because several band members were answering them, we elected to keep all of our full names in the questions and answers just to make sure readers understood who was saying what.

And for context, the band line-up is as follows:

Adam Eytan: Guitar/Vocals

Ian D'Arcangelo: Bass/Lead Vocals

Alex Giosa: Percussion

Ben Sullivan: Drums

Nate Lawson: Drums (touring)

Sam McGarrity: Guitar/Vocals

Hope that helps! Please email us at interviewsbyuma@gmail.com for questions or interview suggestions. And down below here, we’re posting the full Portland show that Uma and Dan attended. At about the 1:20 minute mark you can see Uma to the lower right setting up her phone and recording some clips for herself. Until next time, thank you so much to the band and we hope you all enjoy this interview with One Time Weekend.

Interviews By Uma and Dan: One Time Weekend

Dan Szczesny: Give us a little history of the band. Where did you meet? How did you come together? Where did you start and where are you based these days?

Adam Eytan: We’ve all mostly known each other since we were kids, but became friends in high school when we started playing music together in 2016. The trio of Ian, Ben, and Zac started the whole thing, then I joined about six months after. We’re still based right where it all began, mostly living around the Hartford area.

Dan Szczesny: How did you land the run with High Fade? Any thoughts on them or on that series of shows?

Adam Eytan: We’d known of high fade for a couple years, having seen them on our Instagram reels and whatnot. Their style is unique and super high energy like we aspire to be, and they were really standup lads. We were pumped to open for them on their Northeast run and the shows were incredible. I believe they picked us from a list our agency gave them.

Ian D'Arcangelo: I actually saw them on a street corner in Edinburgh a few years ago. They were busking and I was pretty impressed with how funky they were.

Percussionist Alex Goisa (Photo courtesy @ryanreid.sound)

Uma Szczesny: I've never been to a concert where someone played chimes and bongos before and that was really neat. Can you tell me more about that musician and if he's a regular member? How does one learn to play chimes?

Alex Giosa: Awesome! Great question! You can actually go to school to study percussion. I attended college to study classical percussion, which is the family of instruments in the back of the symphony orchestra which add color and texture to the music. We learn how to play snare drum, bass drum, timpani, xylophone, glockenspiel, cymbals, tambourines, chimes, and anything else that you might hit, scratch, or shake to make sound. Some of these instruments seem simple, but they all have their own challenges. I’ve literally spent classes learning all of the proper ways to play a triangle!

The chimes (actually called a Mark Tree, after its inventor), aren’t the most challenging instrument to play, but there are some things to think about. Do you want the pitch of the stroke (called a glissando in musical terms) to rise or fall? Do you want it to be fast or slow? Loud or soft? Do you want it to fade away, or linger? Sometimes, I’ll play them with my fingers and dampen them with my arm. Sometimes, I’ll use a stick or a brush for a different effect. All of a sudden, a simple instrument isn’t as simple as it seems!

The bongo playing came from years of studying with a percussionist from Cuba. One cool thing about percussion is that it can be found in all kinds of culture, all over the world. A lot of percussionists also get into studying world music for this reason. It’s a really cool family of instruments to study! Thank you for the question!

Ian D'Arcangelo: Alex is a recent addition to our lineup and we are so grateful for his musical and technical knowledge.

Bass player and lead vocalist Ian D’Arcangelo (Photo courtesy @ryanreid.sound)

Uma Szczesny: My dad said that the bass player has a special bass. How is it special? Did you make it?

Ian D’Arcangelo: I actually did not make my bass, but I wish I did! It was made for a friend of mine, who sold it to me in 2019. He's a very tall guy, and the bass is an extended scale, which makes it rather difficult to play. Since the neck is longer however, the additional low B string resonates really nicely. The neck of the bass is also a part of the body of the bass, meaning there are no bolts holding it on. In my opinion it makes everything sound better!

Dan Szczesny: What are some of the band's musical influences?

Adam Eytan: I like a lot of stuff, but it usually revolves around the rock/metal genres. My songwriting is largely inspired by groups like Chon, Avenged Sevenfold, and Cohered and Cambria.

Ian D’Arcangelo: The rest of the band is pretty scattered as well, with ranges across many genres of music. A pretty unifying vein is our love of rock music.

Dan Szczesny: You're a five-piece band, so a lot of talented players. Do you have a writing / producing method? A primary lyricist or composer? How do songs get made at One Time Weekend?

Adam Eytan: We’ve gotten into a really good groove in our songwriting and production method. Myself and Ian are the primary songwriters these days. Songs often get demoed in Pro Tools or Logic first, then edited about a million times, and lyrics come somewhere along the way. This is a nice way for us to get everyone their isolated parts to learn and hear how they’ll mesh with the whole band. Alex Giosa (percussion) is the master studio engineer with his wizardry in microphones and space acoustics, and we’ll record in his home studio. I will then do some degree of editing and mixing before the song gets sent off to a pro for final mixing and mastering.

Guitarist and backing vocals Adam Eytan (Photo courtesy @ryanreid.sound)

Dan Szczesny: Actually, it just occurred to me to ask where the name of the band came from?

Ian D'Arcangelo: People love to ask this one. Back in the early days we used to be called "Ragtop Doozy", but we decided that wasn't cool enough. After way too much deliberation we collectively landed on the title of our most popular song at the time (which was "One Time Weekend"). The name of that song has its genesis from a completely sporadic and stream of consciousness moment. I was late to rehearsal, and when I arrived, our drummer Ben and guitarist Zac were jamming on this catchy four chord progression. I went right up to the mic and the first words that came out of my mouth were "Have you heard about the One Time Weekend?". Finding that interesting I built a storyline around that and we crafted the rest of the song with Adam.

Dan Szczesny: Let's narrow your original work down to one recent song, Cowboy Song. Tell us about the song's meaning and creation process.

Ian D’Arcangelo: I wrote Cowboy Song over the pandemic. I was renting a spot in the woods of CT from a friend of mine and was spending a lot of time alone. Doing a lot of self-reflecting and songwriting, that sort of stuff. I think this song came from that in a way because the main character of the storyline is alone. He's an old cowboy who abandoned/walked away from a great love and is trying to remember a song they used to sing. Every time he gets close to remembering it takes him back to that place and time when that love was still alive. He's got a lot of regret, but there's a sense of hope that he can saddle up and ride off to sing his song one last time. All of this takes place in a romanticized Wild West setting. I was also listening to the Pearl Jam album "Backspacer" at the time and there's some elements of that record infused in there.

This song actually took us four years from creation to master. Parts of it were recorded at the band's homemade studio in 2022 (during the same time we recorded our second album "Fire It Up"), then drums were recorded with our homie and resident percussionist Alex at his old studio, and finally some extra elements finalized in my basement this year. Good things take time.

Uma Szczesny: How young were you all when you started learning music and do you have any advice for kids learning to play?

Ian D’Arcangelo: We all started pretty young, I think I personally was in preschool when I picked up my first instrument (a glockenspiel). My advice would be to play! By play I mean have fun. Find an instrument that calls to you, and learn as much about it as you can. Make sure you're having fun, and learning won’t feel like learning. Also, find a good teacher.

Bass player Ian D’Arcangelo’s pup Momo!

Uma Szczesny: Do any of you have pets? What are their names? Also, what are all of your favorite animals?

Ian D’Arcangelo: I have a dog Momo, and a cat Eugene. Eugene was bestowed upon me by the Cat Distribution Service (look it up). I am very grateful for both animals, as they teach me a lot about myself. My favorite animal in the world would have to be the Blue Whale. It's remarkable that we exist on this planet alongside the largest animal ever! I hope to see one someday.

Dan Szczesny: What's the plan for 2025, what are your goals as a band for the next steps?

Ian D’Arcangelo: We are approaching a little bit of a rebirth of the band, and I am definitely excited for the year to come. In a nutshell I would say new music, more touring, and more creative energy poured into the band. Keeping things realistic, baby steps are still needed. Really concentrating on building our Northeast fanbase in a touring circuit while tapping into a more global audience with our online presence. We've got some great songs, but there's tens of thousands of songs uploaded to Spotify every day (maybe more). Figuring out our marketing "niche" seems to be a way to circumnavigate around the extra noise. It's wild out there.

We're just gonna keep writing cool tunes and having fun on stage!

Your humble scribes at work at the One Time Weekend concert

Interviews By Uma (and sometimes Dan) is a regular question and answer feature developed by ten-year-old Uma Szczesny and formatted and managed by her journalist dad. The column focuses on interviews between Uma and some of her favorite musicians, artists and teachers. For more information on Interviews By Uma, to read her archive or to propose or suggest an interview, email interviewsbyuma@gmail.com.