We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aeryn Goldstein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aeryn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Professor Goldstein’s upcoming album, Songs About Dinosaurs, is a project that means a lot to the band. The album started out as a collection of songs that Aeryn started writing in 2020, when the band was still a solo project/collective. We’ve had a consistent enough lineup through most of the process of creating this album, and therefore we feel comfortable calling “Songs About Dinosaurs” the first album we made as a band together.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hey! Aeryn from Professor Goldstein here. I wanna introduce y’all to the band. We’re an 8-piece party rock group from Hyattsville, MD that’s influenced by pop punk, nu metal, indie folk, and Weezer. We come complete with rhythm section, keyboard, horn section, and hype (no figures sold separately.) We are so stoked to be working on our newest record: Songs About Dinosaurs for y’all right now. By day, I’m a teacher. I’m a music teacher. I’m a Jewish music teacher. I’m a jewish instrumental music teacher. I’m a transgender Jewish instrumental music teacher. I use these experiences/identities as inspiration for songwriting and voila: by night I get together with seven of my best friends who bring their own experiences to the table to get down to writing and performing new tunes and putting our own spin on previously written songs.
By previously written songs, I don’t just mean covers. When I first started the project, Professor Goldstein was an acoustic folk/country duo with my long-time friend and roommate, Ananth Batni on cello (FFO The Mountain Goats, Bright Eyes, Margot & The Nuclear So & So’s.) Once we moved in together in late 2019, we knew we’d be making records together due to Batni’s expertise as a recording/mixing engineer.
We cut a couple singles and played a couple low key shows, then the 2020 COVID lockdown happened. We still wanted to make music for our communities though and it was great having such strong music communities around us such as “This Could Go Boom!” and “Phenomenal Womxn” to work with. We tried taking virtual gigs from a bunch of Maryland mainstays such as The Braceface House and The New Deal Cafe (which many of us consider to be a second home.)
When the group doubled in size a year or two later with bassist Joshua McFarland and jazz guitar virtuoso/metalhead Jan Knutson, we had to sit Ananth on the drums and get a sound of a rock/punk/indie quartet together. This is the sound heard on our latest release: The Fork Universe of Funky Love. The EP takes thematic influence from playing in college party bands in the DMV music scene and crossing it with all kinds of relationships falling apart. Musical influence comes from bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Jawbox, and The Police. Washington City Paper describes the EP as “full of energetic angst and a goofy depression that’s more angry than melancholic.” We released the Fork Universe on This Could Go Boom! Records and the EP was nominated for the 35th annual Wammie Awards as “Best Hard Rock/Punk Album.”
We wanted to go a bit further than the standard rock quartet sound with Fork Universe as well, so we added arrangements for keys and horns in some tunes. This, once again, lead for the band to double in size. In the year we were preparing to release the EP, we added Michael Vekstein on keyboards, Miles Johnson on alto sax, Steve Pastelak on trombone, and Maureen Farrington on tenor sax. Adding all of these members turned the band into straight up party punk!
So what are we doing now? Well, we hunkered down about a year ago and started writing a full length album titles “Songs About Dinosaurs.” This is the first record that feels like the entire band was in on writing it. The influences range from 5th wave emo (Origami Angel, Prince Daddy & the Hyena,) classic rock (Van Halen, Beatles,) with a little return to the folk punk that the band started out as (Bomb the Music Industry, Against Me.) I had written the framework of most of the songs before this and I wanted to let the band run with what they wanted to do with them. Jan brings solos from his jazz influences (Ben Eunson, Julian Lage) as well as metal icons (Children of Bodom, Megadeth.) Miles took charge of writing horn lines akin to SEGA soundtracks and Danny Elfman scores.
Once everything was written and demoed, we went up to the Magpie Cage to record with J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Office of Future Plans.) Working with J has been a fantastic experience. He knows the huge sound we wanted like the back of his hand and he knows the ins and outs of how songs are supposed to work.
As we work on finishing up the album, we’re thrilled to be back to playing some really killer shows with bands such as The Iron Roses, Arcadia Grey, and Outerloop.Getting to play these wild shows and getting the crowd moving is what Professor Goldstein is all about. So join us, dance with us, scream with us. Let’s have a great time!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Biggest thing I’m still working on while leading the band is not forcing things that don’t work. When you try to organize rehearsals, shows, studio time, and media shoots for 7 other musicians with day jobs, it gets grating when things don’t go as planned. However, shit goes wrong all the time and it’s extremely important to keep a cool head when making the decision: do I try to fix this or do I let it go and try a different route? We’ve been working on our new record for a while now and roadblocks (lack of resources, people needing to tend more to their day jobs) keep coming up that only allow us to work on it for small portions of time. However, we’re all passionate about the album and making it the best product we can, so that’s kept me very cool and faithful when it comes to working on the record. We just got our first master back and it sounds fantastic! I can’t wait for y’all to hear it.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most instant gratification for me personally is when we get the people moving at shows. We’ve had the most unlikely crowds moshing and crowd surfing at tiny cafes and DC rowhomes. I’m hoping that the next step is getting the crowd to sing along to our songs (there are some of you and don’t worry I see you out there and love you!) and getting our music out to more areas.   

Contact Info:

• Website: professorgoldstein.bandcamp.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/professorgoldsteinmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=professor%20goldstein
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@professorgoldstein3973

Image Credits
Main Photo and Photo 4: Nat @deadbeatbug_prod Photo 1: Shesh Batni @sheshnb Photo 2: Keith Colon @keefs