Orlando musicians Jason Kupfer and Tierney Tough were bandmates before they were friends. Not that they didn’t like each other; but their relationship started as a professional one in Vostok and their friendship grew from a mutual creative respect that ultimately lasted longer than the band that drew them together.

I chatted with Kupfer and Tough by phone last week about their current alt pop trio, The Pauses, which is gearing up for the national release of their first studio album with two soft release parties this weekend beginning in Ybor on Friday and ending in their Orlando hometown on Saturday.

After Vostok dissolved in 2006. Tough stopped playing music for a few years and focused on interior design, eventually deciding she wanted to return on her own terms, “writing my own music, because I was just playing bass in that band. And I asked Jason to come back and help with some songs, because he’s my personal Jon Brion…”

They formed The Pauses in 2008, began working on material, and went through the usual member changes until they found the right formula with Nathan Chase, a drummer Kupfer met pre-Pauses. “Nathan just seemed like the perfect person to, not only be able to handle complicated, intricate drum work but really understand the electronics that need to be triggered,” Kupfer told me.

This article appears in Dec 30, 2010 – Jan 5, 2011.