We'd been interested in recording No Kind of Rider ever since seeing them play at Mississippi Studios with The Greater Midwest. The band sometimes likes to joke that they get unfairly compared to TV On the Radio because of their appearance in the monochromatic Portland, but their sound is nothing like the Williamsburg art scence. The timing just never seemed to work out to get them into the studio. But now, we're happy to announce that No Kind of Rider will record with us before a live audience, in secret. To get you ready for the show, drummer Jon Van Patten answered our questions on the band's behalf.

Banana Stand: How long has the band been together in its current form? How did it come together?

No Kind of Rider: The band, with its five members, has been together approximately five and half years. We began playing together in late Feb/early March of 2006. Four out of five of us, Wes, Sam, Joe and myself (Jon), knew each other from high school in Tulsa, OK. The other member, which was Jeremy, became known by Sam and Joe from university. I had been playing in another band for roughly a year in Dallas, TX and by end of that year the band had dissolved over a period of a couple months. I moved back to Tulsa to work and go to school. Three months had gone by and I had been feeling restless, began looking for some people to play with and miraculously, got in touch with Sam through this weird website called Myspace. I think our moms had something to do with it. Thanks Mom. It was odd because I had never really been close friends with Sam or any of the other members, but we knew of each other and found to our delight, the five of us all got along quite well from the very beginning. Musical interest as well as personality was on par, which is rare. At the end of the night, after setting up and playing together for the first time, I looked around at the guys and said, "I'm gonna leave my drums here." They looked at me and the general consensus was, Yep, that seems like a good idea. And now, here we are, five and half years later.

BS: How would you describe your sound? What are your key influences?

NKOR: I would say our general sound is raw experimental form of rock n' roll with R&B elements expressing itself through pop song structure for the most part. We have very different influences, but there are also common threads. We typical are not influenced by a lot of older music. Many bands these days sight bands like Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Talking Heads, you know, big legendary names. We're typical inspired by things of the past twenty years, bands like, Rage Against the Machine, Radiohead, Interpol, Blonde Redhead, Brian Eno, Starflyer 59 and Doves. There are countless others as well. We're constantly talking about music and getting excited about things we've discovered. We're like kids in that respect, we get giddy.

BS: Tell us your thoughts about recording live. What makes you interested in recording live at the 'Stand?

NKOR: Although we've put out two EPs, The Black Swan EP and Away Colors, and those songs express themselves very much how we've written them in our practice space on those records, we've typically view ourselves as a Live band. One gets a strong sense of who we really are when they come to one of our shows. We hope to capture those elements at Banana Stand.

BS: What's your favorite memory of a live show? Least favorite?

NKOR: I think that's a hard question to answer. We've been together longer than a lot of bands and have played a considerable number of shows, which is awesome, but sometimes the specifics are difficult to remember. I can say with a good amount of certainty on behalf of NKoR that any show when people connect with with us and/or our music, and we make new friends is generally considered an enjoyable night. Obviously we want to play well all the time and that is always the goal, but when people respond on a personal level, that really means a lot. Least favorite show? Any show when we're having technical difficulties usually is quite stressful. Sometimes equipment doesn't work or our monitor mix on stage is so bad we can't enjoy playing, on those nights, we general get off stage and are just ready to drink some beers and forget about it.

BS: What are your favorite live albums?

NKOR: I would say the two live albums that I enjoy very much and also somehow manage to encapsulate our general sound and aim is Erykah Badu Live (1997) and Nirvana Live at Reading (1992). These albums are significant because Badu Live has an awesome level of instrumental precision in its performance which I can say is a major goal of ours. And Live at Reading is just about as bad ass of a live album as one can get. We aim for raw fist pumping rock n' roll as well.

BS: What other projects are you all involved with?

NKOR: Most of us are typically working day jobs, but also very much interested in other things as well, both musical and otherwise. Jeremy and Wes have been working on some interesting things with local songstress, Jen Moon. And I will be filling in on drums for some shows in the coming months with local band, Greylag.

BS: What are you working on lately?

NKOR: Collectively, we're looking forward to nesting a little bit this autumn and winter and writing as much new material as we can muster. We're in the process of planning a small one week tour north into Washington and British Columbia in mid November. Other than that, we're just trying to get into the idea and discipline of working with a sense of pace and intention. Learning to utilize time well and appropriately is a continuing exercise for No Kind of Rider, but it's a good one and very necessary. New material is on the way at our live shows and we're very much looking forward to that.

Thanks a ton to Jon for participating in our interview. According to their Facebook, No Kind of Rider is a sinner, a salaryman, a sartorialist, a physicist and a psycho. They're recording live at the 'Stand, in secret, later this month.

For more from No Kind of Rider, check them out at nokindofrider.com, and on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.