New Jersey Stage regularly receives emails about new albums and bands that defy categorization. Everyone wants to believe they are doing something revolutionary, but generally those are just words designed for marketing a band. A new quartet from North Jersey called Please Be Careful has just released an instrumental record that is actually rather difficult to put in a box. Is it jazz? Experimental? Indie rock? Some parts sound a bit like punk, others have a dash of dark wave or electronic.
Upon a few spins, the band's debut (Hot Surface) sounds like a really great introduction to jazz for fans of indie rock. I think fans of U2 and The Cure will dig this album. Part of that stems from the musicians and their backgrounds. It's not your traditional jazz quartet.
The band was originally formed by Neil Sabatino (from the indie rock band Fairmont and the CEO of Mint 400 Records) and Christian Kisala from The Bitter Chills and Fairmont. They added drummer Anthony Freda (Million Year Picnic, Cat London) and multi-instrumentalist James DeRose to become a quartet.
Hot Surface includes 12 tracks with most being originals. There are a couple of covers that will be instantly familiar to you even though the band puts its own distinctive spin on each. As with all good instrumental covers, you'll find yourself hearing the vocals in your mind while grooving along.
Considering instrumental albums are still pretty rare and the fact that this is the first time Neil Sabatino is playing with a band other than Fairmont in about 25 years, I reached out to him and Christian to learn more about how this all came together and what their plans for the band are.
The idea for the band originated during the pandemic. Were you just jamming together or actively looking to start something new?
Neil: I think it was mostly because Christian and I lived very close together and Fairmont had kind of stopped rehearsing weekly because of Covid. I was thinking what would be the most convenient kind of thing we could start working on. It started as just the two of us and we did a Soundgarden cover for a 90’s comp Mint 400 Records was doing. We tried out a few people and weren’t really sure at first what we were going to do musically we just discussed a lot of different music we were listening to and I had started to heavily get into a lot more instrumental stuff. We still do Fairmont with Christian on drums but we consciously started writing towards this project with him switching over to mostly keys (which he plays in Fairmont also currently as we are just a recording project).
I think it came about because I was getting to the point that I felt like lyrically I said all I wanted to with Fairmont and I was worried that lament over lack of success is just this overdone lyrical cliché for many older indie bands. I didn’t want to really think about vocals anymore and wanted to be more complex with my guitar parts and just really focus on that. I think it freed up Christian to also play keys without worrying what I could sing along to.
Christian: I think that Neil had signed a few bands that diverged from the indie-rock format and that he was looking for something more along those lines. At the time, I was leaning into improvised experimental electronic music, and he sold me on the idea that we could do something that was collaborative and different. We weren't actively jamming - because of the pandemic - but we were still communicating. The original idea was for a duo that would take advantage of sequencing and be more synth driven, but when we eventually did get together, we decided that the songs and approach was leaning more the direction of a traditional band.
Was the original idea to create instrumental music or did that just happen organically?
Neil: It was a very conscious decision from the start and even though the debut record is pretty eclectic I think that’s more because we were figuring out what we wanted to do. I think at first I personally was just worried would it be busy enough to engage the listener but as we formed a 4 piece cohesive unit it became easier to write because we’d work out at practices what felt good, groove wise. I think this first album is what it is, it’s a band figuring out direction over the course of 12 songs.
Christian: Neil and I have very different ideas about what the approach should be, and how the music should function, so what made it onto the record (and into the live shows) is an interesting result of compromise.
Regarding instrumentals: Was there the thought that if you ever sang lead on a new record it would always draw comparisons to Fairmont?
Christian: Yes, absolutely. Fairmont is pretty synonymous with "Neil Sabatino". The songs and the approach are so natively and intuitive to him that I think it would be very difficult for him to sing and not sound the same.
Neil: I think even if I was going to sing over drastically different music than what Fairmont has been, I’d probably still keep it under the Fairmont moniker. I feel like I never wanted to really be the singer and I hated my voice the whole time I’ve done Fairmont. I feel like I figured out what works best with my voice and I wrote all of the songs I wanted to hear my vocals attempt. This new project is more about what I’m interested in musically for the last decade and exploring my guitar skills and composer skills in a different way than I was able to do with Fairmont.
Fairmont is still a recording project that I can jump back into at any time, and currently we are wrapping up our 14th record but this new project has injected myself and I think Christian with new enthusiasm towards playing out live. Also the writing process has been great with collaborating in a way that I hadn’t been able to do with Fairmont. I feel like before Fairmont I was known as an interesting guitarist and being the singer and guitarist forced me to in a way dumb down the guitar to be able to concentrate on vocals at the same time. I’m enjoying concentrating on guitar tones and effects. Hopefully my guitar playing has much distinct style as my voice does.
Did you and Christian start writing songs together before Anthony and James joined the band or afterwards?
Neil: Christian and I went probably a year before we got Anthony to join and by that point we had enough demos recorded to be able to start working on half of the debut record. Our first bass player was Matt Olsson who played with us through 2024 and helped shape most of the record and then because of his busy schedule as a touring musician he wasn’t able to continue with us. Luckily James knew Christian and we all live within a few blocks of one another so it’s convenient and he’s a great bass player. James was the last piece of the puzzle and we worked throughout late 2024 into all of 2025 to finalize songs and record them for the debut album.
Where has the band played shows so far? Where and when will the record release show be?
Neil: Well we just played Pet Shop in Jersey City and Stosh’s in Fair Lawn. The album comes out on Black Friday and we are figuring out where to play in 2026. Unfortunately our drummer Anthony is having some issues with a herniated disc in his neck so we are taking a little break. He also plays in another instrumental band on Mint 400 Records called Million Year Picnic and we are going to share another bill at Pet Shop in February tentatively.
We plan on hitting up Prototype 237 in Paterson and John And Peter’s in New Hope PA sometime next year as well as Stosh’s again. We just want to play with bands we are friends with. As far as there being a record release show, we are brand new, so we’re fine with just building slowly to the point that we can eventually throw a record release show for a future record that people will want to come out to.
Even though you're still playing with a guy who has been with you in Fairmont for a while, how weird was it to play a show under a different band name for the first time in 25 years?
Neil: Actually Fairmont drummer Andy Applegate and I played some shows in our early days as Dave Weston’s backing band (of the punk band Weston). But it was weird playing a show at all since before September I hadn’t played live at a club since 2019 because of Covid. The first show was really nerve racking. I just felt like my mind was blank and it was all muscle memory as I played the songs. It was actually really weird for me just playing guitar and not having a microphone. The first show we were very cramped and in a tiny space which created some issues that we were able to work out better by show two. Overall though, I had been so anxious about playing shows again and I’m glad I did as it was very satisfying.
Christian: I could tell that Neil was nervous, and it was fun to observe. I knew we'd be fine. The band was rehearsed, and I tried to prepare us for the concept of improvisation - which helps when things inevitably go wrong at shows. At one point Neil backed into my keyboard stand and caused all sorts of issues as stuff was knocked over and came unplugged. My revised setup is much more robust and bump friendly.
Tell me about the band name. As a guy who runs a record label, you know better than most that releasing an instrumental album is anything but being careful.
Neil: We had a whole list of names and I was definitely trying to be less controlling for this project so I wanted Christian to have more input. With Fairmont I had always told him it’s a dictatorship and I had the final say, but with this I wanted to give that attitude up. He suggested Please Be Careful because it’s something his wife would often say to him when he was doing something like opening a package with a knife or some other daily occurrence. It just had a ring to it that I liked and no other band had the name. We had decided on a naming convention for the first album where we wanted song titles fit with that them of being careful. After doing Fairmont for so long and like a thousand bands using that name, a hotel, towns, a DJ, among others, it was nice to have this new project with a name that nobody else had.
Christian: Neil mostly got the origin right. I also like that it's just a nice thing to say to people. At a recent show the band after us (Neon Rayon) said something like: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Be Careful." I like that it's a complete sentence.
Are the guys in the band all fans of jazz? Does everyone have their own influences they bring to the mix?
Neil: I think we all have a big appreciation for jazz but as for what we each listen to I think we all come from very different places. I know that as I was exploring avant garde jazz and I asked Christian about a bunch of stuff it was all old news to him and was things he’d already heard years ago. It’s interesting that Anthony suggested we cover “Summer Breeze” for our album because he definitely has an appreciation for 90’s rap and even snuck in a Notorious B.I.G. beat at the intro of it as well as other spots on the record. James plays in some cover projects currently and they are more geared towards the 80’s. I think everyone’s playing styles though come across as very eclectic and from the mellowest things we play to the heaviest I feel like we all just do what fits the music best and aren’t trying to jam certain styles in there that don’t fit. I would say we all have distinct styles of how we interact with the music and as we write more together I think those styles will solidify more and more.
Christian: Neil constantly suppresses that I have a soft spot for pop music.
I like how the band was trying to develop a sound that is not easily categorized... but does that make it harder to promote?
Neil: I think with this project I didn’t think about any goals outside of writing engaging music. I wasn’t thinking of how to promote it initially. As we got ready to do this release though we did realize that the variations in the live performances did make it interesting to release a bunch of live footage along with the studio stuff. So far the reaction has been better than I anticipated as I’m always pretty pessimistic about the reception of anything I’m working on, as most artists are. For a long time now I’ve just put my head down and create and push it out into the world and hope for the best. I feel like as we write more the music might become easier to categorize but with this initial release I think we were just trying out a bunch of styles to see how we’d sound playing them. I think you could categorize it as instrumental indie rock and it could potentially appeal to a broad array of music fans. We’ll see if that happens.
Finally, where would you guys like the band to go? Is this just a side project or a wait and see how it goes kind of thing? Any thoughts of trying to get the music licensed for tv or film projects?
Neil: Well I’m immersed in this right now and I am starting to write songs for the next record and so has Christian. This is my main project right now and I’m hoping we can play shows and record a bunch more. Coming in December we are going to release a record of about 15 live versions of songs from the album. So we are already looking towards the future with this band. Fairmont will most likely always be there as something I’ll do on occasion, as I mentioned we’re wrapping up album 14, but right now I’m very excited about this band.
With respects to licensing we work with Bankrobber Music a sync licensing firm that works on the whole Mint 400 Records catalog so yeah, it’d be awesome if this stuff finds it’s way into some tv and film projects. We’ve had pretty good luck with Fairmont so hopefully this does as well or better.
Christian: I'd like to see the band continue to grow, to become more of who we are without the confines of trying to fit into a specific genre. I think the next batch of songs is going to be pretty different, and listeners should get used to expecting the unexpected.
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