Orlando Native’s ‘The 502s’ are hosting their CD release party this weekend (August, 14th) at Fiddler’s Green Irish Pub in Winter Park. After being selected to perform at the Okeechobee Music Festival in March with headliners, Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, and Kendrick Lamar, they received such a large response to their Folk sound that the band has recorded their first EP. With the band’s upbeat Folk, indie/pop sound you will clearly be a fan if you Have ‘Lumineers‘or ‘Of Monster’s and Men’ on your playlist.
Check out are chat with band this past week:
How would you describe your musical styling?
We are a mixture of the energy of early Mumford and Sons, crossed with the DIY attitude of The Lumineers and the communal, heartfelt tunes of The Head and the Heart. We’ve got kick drum, banjo, harmonica, mandolin, accordion, trumpet and a lot of energy on stage.
When did all of you decide to come together for this project?
We were fortunate enough to win a big competition and play at Okeechobee Music Festival in March, and at that time we had a lot of original songs that we not only played live, but that also got great crowd reception. At OMF people who saw us would ask where they could find our music, and we kind of reluctantly had to tell them we didn’t have anything recorded yet. We realized it was hard for people to follow us without some music online, so the week after the festival we sat down, picked the four songs we thought were our best, and went into the studio. It felt like the next, natural step for us.
Who are your biggest musical influences? 
Our biggest musical influences by far have been Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers. Our music blends the styles of those two so that it’s familiar yet different at the same time. The “different” part of of that blend comes from other artists who we listen to constantly. We particularly love artists on Communion Records of London, and Bear’s Den and Ben Howard have been huge influences – Bear’s Den especially early on for us. More recently The Avett Brothers, The Oh Hellos, and The Head and The Heart have been on repeat for us.
Do you have a favorite track that you’ve recorded?
Far and away the favorite track to actually record in studio was Hi There, Hello. There were points during that process were all four of us were standing around a mic, they’d hit record, and we just were hooting and hollering, yelling out random things that would go into the background of the song to give it a communal feel. It was incredibly fun to just riff off of each other like that. It was just as fun to get to listen to each take and hear how absurd we were being as well. Trackwise, our favorite song on the EP is The Sea Song. The intro to the song is very powerful and easy to get into, and we love the trumpet part.
Are the lyrics an Individual or more of a collaborate effort?
The lyrics are an individual effort. Ed writes the lyrics, but in a very roundabout way. The music to our songs is always written first, even if it’s just a simple chord structure on a guitar. Then Ed will play the music repeatedly until he comes up with a melody. After that he’ll come up with lyrics and words that flow well in the melody, with inspiration coming from tons of different places. If Ed is ever stuck on what to write, one thing he likes to do is randomly pick words out of books, especially Hemingway novels, and then weave a story for the song around those words.
Is there anything you would like to tell our Orlando Reader’s?
We’re very proud to be from Orlando and to be doing our EP release here. Come out to Fiddler’s on August 14th 5PM, it will be a great evening!
