By Sonia Schnee | Posted Thursday, April 14, 2022
Stanhope, NJ band The City Limit is cooking up new music for 2022, drawing on a diverse range of influences, from blues to pop, rock, funk, jazz, and folk. I interviewed bandmates Scott Lewis, Anthony Ambrosio, Sean Farrelly, and Mike Casson twice last year to ask them about their future music plans. Just a little over a month ago, they teased on Instagram part of a new single, which we may get to hear on April 22nd when they perform at Newton, NJ's Greek's Bar. Then, on Saturday, May 14th, The City Limit will be traveling down south, performing for the first time in North Carolina at Wampus Cat Music Festival.
In our interview, bandmates Scott, Anthony, Sean, and Mike reflected on the good parts of 2020/2021, plans for their new EP, what it’s like getting messages from international fans, and they gave some shout-outs to some very influential family members. Catch it all by watching our interview above or reading the transcript below.
(Video and transcript have been edited for time and clarity.)
Interview 2: December 2021
SCOTT LEWIS: I'm Scott.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: My name is Anthony. I play bass guitar.
SEAN FARRELLY: My name's Sean. I play drums.
MIKE CASSON: My name is Mike, and I play keyboards.
SCOTT LEWIS: And we are The City Limit.
Going back to the first interview (March 14, 2021), the day we did the interview, you said the night before you were recording a music video.
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah! We recorded the music video for our last single "Wake Up Your Mind” [see above].
You had a friend from L.A. who was a videographer/cinematographer who came and filmed it. Tell me a little bit about that.
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah, so he's a childhood friend of Anthony's.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Yeah, me and him were in bands together, grew up together playing music, and he went on the path of film. He worked in L.A., doing all sorts of odd jobs working in the industry. He really needed something for his portfolio, so he came out and basically did it for free. We had to pay for whatever expenses, but we didn't have to pay him anything. The video turned out awesome.
SCOTT LEWIS: He did such an amazing job with it.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: For no budget.
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah, and it looks fantastic when you watch the video.
Yeah, it looks really, really aesthetically pleasing, with all the twinkle lights and the colors and everything.
SCOTT LEWIS: That was all to Steve [Stephen Joseph Craig] -- the director's -- credit.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Yeah, he set up everything.
SCOTT LEWIS: He sent me to Lowe's and I was like, "Get a bunch of lights." I'm like, "Alright" so I got a bunch of lights and then we strung 'em up and the rest was just his talent.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It was all in my garage, too. It worked out great.
You did a ton of shows then after that. Are there any that stand out, or do you have any general observations of what that was like during the pandemic?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: You know what, we didn't notice the pandemic, per se. It was a little harder booking gigs that pay and stuff, but in terms of playing gigs, there were a lot of gigs out there to grab.
SCOTT LEWIS: They take a little bit more legwork to find now. It's a little bit more like you have to actively hunt them out, whereas before the pandemic, places were playing tug-of-war, like, "We want you to play." "No, we want you to play." "No, we want you to play." Now, it's a little bit more you searching them out. As he mentioned, they don't have as much money to play with anymore. Obviously, a lot of restaurants closed down during the lockdowns during the pandemic, so everyone's kind of financially struggling, so they just don't have as much money to play with. So, those things make being a performer or a gigging musician a little bit more difficult, but we just love playing together. We love playing on stage and playing our songs for people. So, despite the pay cut, we have not been deterred whatsoever. We're just as happy as ever to get on stage and play for people.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: The upstate New York shows were definitely some of the better ones. There were festivals, a lot of people. A lot of fun.
SCOTT LEWIS: That one in Barryville.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Kenny's Cosmic Campout. That was good. And then, The Grateful Daze. Same area.
SCOTT LEWIS: So, we're hugely influenced by The Grateful Dead. We're all obsessed with The Grateful Dead. In upstate New York is this whole community of Deadheads up there that throw these great music festivals, and we got to be a part of two of them this year and one of them last year. Those are some of the most fun shows you ever played. Everybody's there for the same reason, which is just to play and listen to great music, and it's a very communal vibe. We were outsiders coming into it, and they were so welcoming to us. We're going to be back there again in 2022 at all those shows, so love upstate New York, love the whole Deadhead culture up there. It's a really, really great place to play music.
SEAN FARRELLY: We have some other potential gigs coming up that could be cool, too, that aren't just in the area, like down in North Carolina.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: In North Carolina, we have a gig set.
SEAN FARRELLY: Wampus Cat Music Festival. We got selected to play in North Carolina at this festival, so we're going to be taking a road trip out there, and we have a couple of other gigs that we're working out in the Louisiana area and Virginia. So, we're trying to move southward with our music. That's something that we intended to do in 2020, but then, obviously, the carpet got pulled out from under everyone, so now we're excited to pick it back up.
SCOTT LEWIS: The Wampus Cat's going to be in late-May, and then we're going to try to be in the Louisiana area in mid-summer, sometime around there. One thing that we're learning as we go along in the years of being a band is plan your summers and stuff way in advance. In the past year, we were scrambled, like "Oh my God, summer's here. Let's find shows."
SCOTT LEWIS: By the way, if you see me popping up and sitting back down, I have a pot of gumbo I've been making since 2 o'clock in the afternoon over there, so I just keep running over to it and tending to it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.
That sounds pretty good. Hey, do what you got to do!
SEAN FARRELLY: Scott likes to cook for us.
SCOTT LEWIS: I need to feed my boys.
SEAN FARRELLY: It's one of his favorite pastimes.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It's the only way he's going to get us over his house, basically.
SCOTT LEWIS: They're growing boys. I've gotta keep them nurtured.
Congratulations on Spotify! I saw that you got a lot of streams, a lot of followers in a lot of countries. That's pretty wild.
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah, we've been trying to build our online following a little bit.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: That's a hard thing to do.
SCOTT LEWIS: It is.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Emails and playlists and whatnot and curators. It takes a lot of work.
[Keyboard player Mike Casson joins the interview.]
SCOTT LEWIS: Here is our piano prodigy extraordinaire.
MIKE CASSON: How's it going?
We were just going over the past shows that you've done over the year. You guys have been really busy. Are there any that stick out in your mind that you particularly enjoyed?
MIKE CASSON: Yeah, there were a bunch. What was it, Riverfest?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: That was a couple of years ago, but still. We were saying The Grateful Daze and Kenny's Cosmic Campout.
MIKE CASSON: Oh yeah, The Grateful Daze was really cool. We played at a brewery recently, too, that was really cool.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Yeah, Fort Nonsense Brewing Company had a grand re-opening. That was a Halloween show, too.
What are your plans in terms of new music? Is it a similar sound and feel compared to what you've done in the past?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Pretty similar sound and feel. We try to change it up, but we've got some songs in the works. Nothing ready to put on record yet, but we did record a single over this past summer that's ready to be released probably within the next month or so.
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah, me and Anthony are kind of approaching the end of the writing process for this next record that we're going to start doing in 2022. I'm really excited about it because I feel like this next record, just based on the raw form of the songs we have now, it's going to be kind of like the final realization of what we've been trying to do with this band. Look at the last record, and it kind of has elements of the first record in it. This next one is going to be, I think, a total breaking new ground type of thing where it's going to be something completely fresh. It's going to be the four of us working like lockstep with each other as one cohesive unit. We're all going to be putting our creativity together in one, and that's going to be really fun to see.
Clockwise: Mike Casson, Scott Lews, Sean Farrelly and Anthony Ambrosio recording at Backroom Studios in Rockaway, NJ.
Are you going back to Backroom Studios with Kevin [Antreassian]?
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah, he's like our George Martin, you know what I mean?
MIKE CASSON: He's really good.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: He works well with us. He knows us.
MIKE CASSON: He's been doing it for a while with the band.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: And he's very easy to work with. You say anything and he'll do it. Like, "Oh yeah, let's do it! Let's try it," you know?
SCOTT LEWIS: This will be our fourth session with him, and I just feel like now we have a bit of a shorthand and we have a rapport with him where we don't have to overexplain anything. He just kind of intuitively knows what to do for our band and our sound and our songs.
You guys didn't really stop during the pandemic. You kept going, staying really busy, and playing shows. Did you find that, in terms of the audience reaction, people were grateful to be able to be outside of their houses/apartments? Was there a good vibe? What was that audience reaction like?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: People just started coming back out, especially when it got nice out. A lot of the stuff was outside. During the winter Scott and I were doing some acoustic stuff, or Mike and Scott were doing some acoustic stuff, and people just loved it. People were just trying to get out and live their lives again.
SCOTT LEWIS: I almost feel like now people are more grateful than ever for live music, you know what I mean? People went through a period of time when they were all locked in their houses streaming Netflix, and so now when they're at a place with live music, they appreciate it. It's Like, "Wow, life would be bleak without this." So there is that little thing. I think people are more excited for live music now than ever before.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Even for us, guys, we're guys who go to concerts all the time. We hadn't gone to any shows, but luckily all four of us together got to go see Hall & Oates this summer.
SCOTT LEWIS: That was amazing!
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It was down at PNC Bank Arts Center.
MIKE CASSON: That was a great night.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: A great little outing. It was the first concert of the last couple of years, sort of thing.
SCOTT LEWIS: We're all into so many different kinds of music, but we all love pop music so much. To see one of the greatest pop music writing duos, to see them on stage, and they sounded as good as ever, it was really, really inspiring and cool.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It was.
MIKE CASSON: Daryl was getting mad at the sound guys, though. He kept on getting feedback.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: We're sorry about that, Daryl.
SCOTT LEWIS: The sound sucks at PNC, and I'm so happy that Daryl held their feet to the fire on that one.
MIKE CASSON: He was getting mad, but they killed it, though.
SCOTT LEWIS: I was getting mad.
SEAN FARRELLY: I didn't even mind spending the $14 on the beer.
What are your plans for 2022? You mentioned new music, the festivals.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: That's our biggest goal, to get some new music. We want to be back in the studio at some point, hopefully real soon.
SCOTT LEWIS: Yeah, we pretty much have like the next EP written out, and I'm personally so excited about it because I think that some of the songs on this next record are going to be our best ones yet. Just this new single alone that we recorded, we showed it to a few close friends and they were like, "This is better than anything from the last two records." In my mind, I'm like, "Well, wait 'til you see what else is on the next EP. It's going to be even better than this." So, I think that we're just keeping that upwards trajectory going, of getting better and better with the songs. I'm really excited.
For the new EP, do you have any collaborations in mind?
SCOTT LEWIS: The last record, we worked with two amazing musicians named Earl Maneeine and Jennifer Devore who are members of... It's actually a funny story. So Earl is an amazing violinist, and his wife, Jennifer, is an amazing cellist. They're part of this quartet called The Vitamin String Quartet. They do these amazing tributes to great songwriters like Elliott Smith and Fiona Apple and all these great songwriters who we admire. So I'd been listening to them since I was in high school, and then one day we were talking to Kevin [Antressian], like "We need strings" and he was like, "Oh, I have some string players I could hook you up with." He gave us the contact info, we started talking, we added each other on Facebook, and like a week after we added each other on Facebook, I was bored and I was looking at their Facebook and it says "Violinist and cellist at Vitamin String Quartet." I was like, "Wait, WHAT?" I didn't even know these guys who I had been talking to about the project and working on our songs were from this quartet I had been listening to for like 10-12 years and who I loved so much. That was a really cool, full-circle moment. So, that was on the last record.
We don't really know who we're going to work with on this next one. We're a very tight-knit group when it comes to recording. Like, we usually don't let anybody in the studio other than us, but as we get to a song and we say, "Oh, this needs this instrument, this needs that instrument..." For the first record, we hired a saxophone player. So we kind of play by ear and see what the song needs, and then we kind of hunt out someone to play the part.
Our first drummer on our first record was a good friend of ours — and is still a close friend of the band — Sean Meyers. He has this great project called Gates to the Morning. On the first record on our song "Wreckage", track 3 on our first EP, there's this is a line where it says "Every time it rains so hard, a little bit of us weathers away" and when I say the word "rain", Sean did a rain stick, so “Every time it rains” it goes "tshhhh." We forced Kevin to take that recording of the rain stick.
SEAN FARRELLY: Yeah, take the rain stick and put it in every other release.
SCOTT LEWIS: Every single release we ever do, like 40 years from now, we're going to be using the rain stick.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It's in the new single. You'll hear it.
MIKE CASSON: It's subtle.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It's very subtle.
MIKE CASSON: But it's nice.
SCOTT LEWIS: Basically, we want, 40 years from now, to still have Sean have a credit on our record and he hasn't talked to us in like 30 years but we just want him to be there, just so he opens the record and he's like, "These idiots." So, we're looking forward to seeing how we can utilize the rain stick.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: This new EP, I am pretty sure on one track there is going to be some sort of instrument. Something. We don't know what yet, but something will be there, just for fun, you know? Horns or something.
MIKE CASSON: I personally think it's cool to collab with people that you like in the local scene.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Oh yeah, definitely.
MIKE CASSON: Because there's so many talented people that we know that, you know, a lot of people, sometimes we get caught up in being a band and just focusing on what the band should sound like, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to get our music out there to as many people as possible, and sometimes a collab can just take a good song and make it something special. I definitely am open to that.
SCOTT LEWIS: Me, too.
MIKE CASSON: If we know the people that would fit, you know?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: It's not planned. It just kind of gets figured out as the process is happening.
Since Spotify is so international, do you ever get messages from people in different parts of the country or different parts of the world that are surprising?
SCOTT LEWIS: We got a really lovely review from a music blog in Mexico, and we had to use Google Translate to understand what they were saying. It said something to the effect of, "This is a great blend of pop, funk, blues, disco" and I was like, "I guess there is disco in there." They were like, "You've gotta have this in your music library." As we're reading out the Google Translate, we were like, "These guys are so nice." So there's been little instances of that. We're going to try to have that same outreach with the next single.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: We've been working with a radio promotion company called Twin Vision, and they were the ones that were helping us spread it around. We're going to be working with them with this new single as well. So hopefully we get the same kind of feedback with people reaching out.
SEAN FARRELLY: We're hoping they remember us from the last one, so they see that we released a new one and will be like, "Oh yeah, I remember these guys. We'll check it out."
Where are they based?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: They're based out in Brooklyn. They work with everyone all over the country, but their main offices are in Brooklyn. They found us. We played at Rockwood Music Hall two years ago. They searched the website and found us through the website, listened to our music, and reached out to us about helping us promote shit, but we didn't have anything out at the time, so we used them last year and we reached out again this year for the new single. So, hopefully, it works out.
Is there anyone who you'd like to give a shout-out to?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: I’d like to give a shout-out to "the two Jim’s." Sean's father and Mike's father, Jim Casson and Jim Farrelly. They come to every show we play.
SEAN FARRELLY: Every show. No matter where it is.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: They just show up.
SCOTT LEWIS: Jim squared.
MIKE CASSON: They're a good duo.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Excellent duo..
SCOTT LEWIS: We've had this pipe dream of a photoshoot where we dress up our dads as us.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: And they're the band, they just wear outfits we happen to wear. Sweater vests and beards and stuff.
SCOTT LEWIS: Me in like a beer-stained shirt. Anthony in a snap-on jacket. Mike in a Nintendo T-shirt with a beanie on.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Man bun.
MIKE CASSON: I’ll wear something ridiculous, like tigers…
SCOTT LEWIS: Like a muscle shirt covered in watermelons.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Jim's gotta start working out to do this.
SCOTT LEWIS: Didn't we have an idea where, for some reason, we were going to be in the background? Like, you know in a cartoon when a bunch of characters poke their heads around a corner and their heads are stacked? It's gonna be us looking around the corner at our dads as us.
MIKE CASSON: It’s a good idea for a cover.
SCOTT LEWIS: We were really high when we came up with this idea, but it sounded great at the time.
Yeah, that could be the artwork for the cover.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: We can't help that we're geniuses.
SCOTT LEWIS: If you saw that album cover, wouldn't you go, "I vaguely want to take a listen to this"?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: You'd shut it off after the first 20 seconds.
SCOTT LEWIS: But at least you started it!
I would be intrigued, for sure.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Even if they didn't have their shirts on. Actually, our dads are almost in better shape than us.
SCOTT LEWIS: Our dads are in way better shape than us.
Are any of them musical? Would they ever have a guest spot?
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: My dad's actually a drummer, almost like a casual hobby. When I was a kid, he'd put on Journey CDs and just play along to them. So that's kind of what got me into it. I started jamming on drums. He got me a guitar and a bass and whatnot. But other than that, not really.
SCOTT LEWIS: My dad learned "Badge" by Cream on the bass when he was, like, 25 and then never did anything else musical again.
SEAN FARRELLY: My dad kind of knows how to play drums because I've shown him a couple of things in recent past years. I think he just needs to get over the confidence part.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: He is a black belt, though.
SEAN FARRELLY: Yeah. He needs to get out and just play in front of people. He is a black belt, though. I know that's not really a musical instrument.
MIKE CASSON: My dad did choir when he was younger and he'll sing, kind of. He's not into music really, but he's always had a great taste in music. I owe him a lot for all the insane catalogs of different genres, of all the classics that he had showed me growing up, that has just seeped into your subconscious and then you grow up and it’s kind of influences you.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Same with me. My dad introduced me to so much music. Never was a huge musician, but he was just a huge music fan.
Shout-out to them!
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: Oh yeah. Other than that, everyone else can suck it, I would have to say, right?
A shout-out to our friend, Nicole. She helped us a lot.
SCOTT LEWIS: Oh yeah. Let's give a shout-out to Nicole! She's always there for us, even when we are not there for ourselves. We really appreciate that.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: She helps us with a lot of things. She's gotten us gigs. She's taken pictures.
MIKE CASSON: Helped us book.
SCOTT LEWIS: She's a jack-of-all-trades.
MIKE CASSON: Yeah, she's great.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: She's a good friend.
MIKE CASSON: Shout-out to Nicole. Nicole's cool. She's a good friend.
OK, well, I will let you guys enjoy your gumbo and cornbread and pizza.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: We've been waiting for the gumbo for hours.
SCOTT LEWIS: That's not true, it's ready. Don't listen to him! We should do this once a year. This is fun. This is nice.
Hey, it's always good to catch up.
MIKE CASSON: We should make a Patreon.
SCOTT LEWIS: We should.
MIKE CASSON: We should.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: I was thinking an OnlyFans.
MIKE CASSON: We could do an OnlyFans.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: They think it's nudes and they click on it and it's one of our shitty songs. “We paid for this shit?!”
SCOTT LEWIS: They think it's nudes but they click on it and it's just me making gumbo for 11 hours straight.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: And me yelling at him. "Where's dinner? Where's my dinner?!"
SCOTT LEWIS: I’d pay for that. I’d watch that.
Yeah, you should do that on YouTube! What do they have? The yule log that plays in a loop for 24 hours?
SCOTT LEWIS: It’s Scott stirring gumbo.
SEAN FARRELLY: I love that idea!
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: We'll give you royalties.
You can have that, and then people can tip you along the way.
MIKE CASSON: Livestreaming on Twitch.tv.
ANTHONY AMBROSIO: With a City Limits track on repeat in the background.
SCOTT LEWIS: We'll give you a producer's credit, Sonia.