SHREDnews

By: Jess Grenier

Jess Grenier: Please state your name and what you do for the band?

Shaant Hacikyan: My name is Shaant and I sing.

Jess Grenier: How did the band get started?

Shaant Hacikyan: It’s just an idea that I had in my bedroom and right after high school, we put our songs online, we got signed six months later and it just took off from there.

Jess Grenier: Is there any story behind the name Cute Is What We Aim For?

Shaant Hacikyan: It’s just a joke between friends and I never thought it would amount to anything and it did. So yeah, I think about that a lot though, cause it doesn’t even make sense. Would it be cute…? I don’t even know what it would be, but grammatically it doesn’t make any sense.

Jess Grenier: Do you have any main influences when writing music?

Shaant Hacikyan: No, not at all, just wing it and have fun, you know what songs good cause every sing day it’s different and it influences would just be, I guess anything that’s going on in your life or anything that you’re listening too.

Jess Grenier: Cute Is What We Aim For recently released “Harbor” online, would you like to talk about that a little?

Shaant Hacikyan: It was the first song we wrote for this… this time around. It’s the first song we wrote and I think it’s… it definitely represents a direction in where we’re headed which is… I guess is undefined, you know? We just write something that’s fun and we dig it, we did it and if we don’t, we don’t. When bands really go out for a particular sound they kind of box themselves into something and that’s not what I ever want to do.

Jess Grenier: Stay out of the box.

Shaant Hacikyan: Yeah, fuck the box.

Jess Grenier: Do you have any current plans to record an album or EP?

Shaant Hacikyan: Yes, absolutely with hopes of releasing in the summer, no not the summer, the fall but its all kind of up in the air.

Jess Grenier: What are you looking forward to most on this tour with The Bigger Lights, The Friday Night Boys and Down With Webster?

Shaant Hacikyan: Stuff like this, being able to just hangout and travel and live a life with people you enjoy, minus him. He’s just constantly in my way haha. Yeah, I’m just excited to hang out with like-minded individuals, you know? You’re surrounding yourself with people who are taking a risk to play music for a career and who all really enjoy music to do so, I mean what’s better than that?

Jess Grenier: Absolutely nothing.

Shaant Hacikyan: Yeah, there you go.

Jess Grenier: Do you guys have any plans for after this tour?

Shaant Hacikyan: After this tour, yeah we’re going to go to Canada and then do some recording, then either do the U.S again or hopefully head to the southern hemisphere. Do some Australian and Japanese dates. Yeah, that would be really cool.

Jess Grenier: If you could tour with any three bands who would they be and why?

Shaant Hacikyan: I don’t know… I don’t know if it’d be a band I really liked because I’d be nervous if they weren’t very nice. After I say that I’ve heard that Third Eye Blind, just not good things. Uhm, who wouldn’t want to tour with The Beatles, Queen and Ace of Base cause that’s fucking weird.

Jess Grenier: Actually Queen has been a very popular choice.

Shaant Hacikyan: Dude, I mean come on, how can you not… Queen?

Jess Grenier: It’s Queen

Shaant Hacikyan: Totally. Flawless… Queen is flawless. Can you find a flaw in Queen?

Jess Grenier: Is there one fact that your fans might not know about you?

Shaant Hacikyan: I stopped eating mammal flesh, I just eat seafood and yeah that’s it.

Jess Grenier: That’s pretty good

Shaant Hacikyan: Yeah, it’s been a couple of months and I lost a lot of weight but you know what’s funny is that I’m such a carnivore, or that I was such a carnivore that I wouldn’t touch anything else except for pieces of meat and now I find myself, I guess… I’m rambling now. Now I’m really thinking about the Midwest, how the hell am I going to find seafood in the Midwest. So I guess I didn’t think of that. But yeah, I dunno, I stopped eating mean and that big for me cause would’ve never in a million years think that I’d stop eating meat.

Jess Grenier: It takes a lot of will power, I’ve tried and it’s really hard.

Shaant Hacikyan: It’s tough because you have to you really have to subside eating in general to find what’s appropriate and falls under boundaries.

Jess Grenier: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Shaant Hacikyan: Well, thank you so much for doing this, first and foremost and we’ll do it again?

Jess Grenier: Yes

Shaant Hacikyan: Alright.

Jess Grenier: For sure, only if you come to Boston again.

Shaant Hacikyan: I think we’re able to come to the city, I’ve heard of it a few times… Baw… Boston? I’ll tell the agent.