In this interview spotlight, I chat with Tennessee based rockers Pumpkinseed about their latest project, motivations, challenges and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

We split members between Nashville and Cookeville, TN. We play a mixture of Rock ‘n Roll, Soul, Blues, and whatever might be baking our noodle at the time. Always subject to change based on what we perceive a specific audience to need from us.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?

We’re not good at anything else, and we’re inspired by greatness. We want to make a lasting impression with what we make and strive to make something that’s always adjacent to what is currently happening as to not fall victim to the pitfalls of nowness. Never be a part of a movement you didn’t start and run away from things that come in waves. This is how we try to sound like us at all times.

How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

Up until the release of this album, you could always add ‘punk’ as a genre descriptor to what we did and be somewhat accurate (punk-rock, folk-punk, e.t.c.). It was a personal goal of mine to make sure no one could do that with this album. I also just like surprising people. It’s fun to go away and quietly make an album that sounds like nothing you’ve done before and presenting it to people as the same band that they liked before and seeing if they still dig it.

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

This is the first album we’ve done that we put up on streaming services or even did legitimate promotion behind, so all of that has been a learning curve of it’s own. It definitely does help an artist at our level, just as far as the music being more accessible to listeners. Plenty of people complain about Spotify not treating artists right and not paying, but we’re not at a level where that is a concern, we’re just happy people can stream our music easier. People around me love playing the game of getting their stuff on big playlists and making sure their numbers are always increasing as far as sales and downloads. I just feel like we’re at a point where making music is more important than making money; we all work jobs and pay for everything ourselves and not we’re just more focused on having a body of work we can be proud of at the moment.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

Follow me on twitter for more cynical ramblings like this: @danpumpkinseed
Follow on Instagram for updates on where we’re playing and tours and such: @danielpumpkinseed
and check us out on Facebook if you’re over 40 and pronounce ‘meme’ wrong: https://www.facebook.com/pumpkinseedtn/

Anything else before we sign off?

Thanks for letting me talk and check out our album anywhere you stream music!