A Chat With: Alice Merton

Photo by Danny Jungslund

Singer-songwriter Alice Merton just released her sophomore album S.I.D.E.S. last month as a follow up to her 2019 debut record, entitled Mint. Chances are, you’ve heard Merton’s massive hit “No Roots,” which was included on her debut record in addition to being released as her first ever single. Since the release of “No Roots,” Merton has gone on to garner over 1 Billion streams, performed at international festivals like Coachella and Hurricane, and toured with acts like Young the Giant, Vance Joy and Bastille—just to name a few.

S.I.D.E.S features the same strong vocals and intricate range we’ve heard from Alice Merton in the past, but she’s expanded and matured her artistry to another level with the new material. On tracks like “Same Team” and “Vertigo,” listeners experience Merton combining authentically transparent lyrics about the hard times she experienced over the past couple of years with vivid imagery. Merton has a knack for being descriptive enough that you can paint a picture of her tales, while at the same allowing for listeners to interpret their own meanings from the music. Throughout the fifteen tracks on the record, Merton brings us along for the ups and downs of her challenging journey, but we end on a high note with “The Other Side.” The final song perfectly describes that feeling when optimism starts to creep back into your life following a particularly hard time, which I think is something we could all stand to be reminded lately.

When Alice Merton and I connected over Zoom the week following S.I.D.E.S’ release date, it was just hours after the announcement that Roe V. Wade had been overturned by the Supreme Court. During our discussion, we talked about the challenge of balancing healthy distractions against the never-ending cycle of bad news, her nomadic lifestyle, artistic inspiration and more. Tune into the full conversation below.

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ANCHR Magazine: Kicking things off, I’d love to hear your first musical memory. Either when you started playing music or just becoming a fan, what sticks out to you?

Alice Merton: It’s either gonna be sitting at the piano learning scales, when I was about 5, or it’d be car trips with my family. My dad always put the The Alan Parsons Project on, which was probably the first kind of music I was introduced to. 

That’s awesome, I love a good road trip memory! Well skipping to current day, I actually saw you perform on tour with Bastille last month. I’m from Chicago but I was in Seattle for work and went to the Portland and Seattle shows. This is going to be such a crazy tangent, but I used to work with your bandmate Regi in Chicago at Lincoln Hall. I didn’t know that he was in your band before the show! I remember him moving away but never kept in touch with him, and when you introduced him onstage, it all clicked.

That’s so funny! So you guys worked together at Lincoln Hall?

Yeah it’s such a small world! I went up to him later to make sure it was him and now we’ve reconnected.

That’s so funny, I love those kinds of stories!

Sorry that was such a tangent.

No, that’s super cute! I’ll have to tell him that later.

Tell him I said hi! But back to the original question, I wanted to ask what was a highlight or your favorite moment of that tour with Bastille, or the festival circuit you’re on right now?

While we were touring with Bastille, it was so much fun! I think one of our highlights on that tour was when they surprised us onstage. They came out on the last song, “No Roots,” and jammed with us and danced with us. I didn’t know that was going to happen! The Bastille boys came on for our set, and then we danced with them on their last song, so that for me was a beautiful highlight because that was the end of the tour for us and it was a nice thing to do. 

I love that! A Bastille sneak attack.

Yeah! They’re all so lovely, all such nice guys. 

I also remember on that tour before you played “Vertigo” you mentioned the song was about the feeling you would get going onstage…that anxiety and the stage fright. So besides writing a song about it and going to therapy, do you have any advice for anyone struggling with social anxiety?

I have social anxiety as well, and that’s also one of the reasons I wrote “Vertigo.” Not just the stage fear, but being in places with lots of people, being in clubs…I felt like I just couldn’t enjoy things that every “normal” person, or in my head “normal person,” would enjoy. I think what really helped me was to find people that were like me as well where I don’t have to feel like “Oh I should be going to a bar or a club and doing all these activities” when that’s obviously not something that makes me feel good sometimes. It really kind of triggers me, and I always gave myself a hard time for that, instead of being like “oh that’s fine, Alice, you don’t need to do all that stuff because everyone is different and everyone likes different things.” I kept thinking that I have to change, I have to become better at working on being in a situation with lots of people. If I’m being honest with myself, I have become better with that, and that’s where therapy helps. I have stopped forcing myself to think that I have to be a certain way, to be like everyone  else. I don’t like going to clubs and I don’t like going to busy places, I like to just be in the studio writing some songs.

Yeah, and have you found that with talking about it, you found like-minded people and it’s opened that door for you?

It really did open the door in that regard! I used to get made fun of by various friends like “why do you always stay home?” I don’t care anymore… I like to bake, and I like to write songs, and I like to watch movies and series. 

Right, wasn’t that one of the only upsides of the pandemic?

Yeah! For some people it was the worst thing ever because it was like “oh I can’t go out!” and for me, it was like nothing changes. It was nice because I don’t feel this anxiety any more that everyone is expecting me to be somewhere.

Yeah it kind of took away from the FOMO because you’d be at home and know you’re not missing out on anything because we were all at home. 

Exactly!

Well speaking of “Vertigo,” it’s on the album S.I.D.E.S., which is brand new…just a week old. It’s still a newborn.

It really is a newborn! I’m still adjusting to it being out, It’s amazing with it being out, but it’s also kind of terrifying that everyone gets to hear it and it’s out of my control. It’s like I have no influence over what happens with this album anymore.

Yeah I was going to ask how it felt to have it out! It’s exciting/terrifying right?

Yeah exciting and terrifying at the same time. 

Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience both writing the record, as well as recording it?

During the pandemic, it was hard to record any way. I was being very careful, I wasn’t really going into studios. I managed to find a few producers who we’d do tests beforehand, but it was still kind of a stressful situation because I never really felt 100% comfortable with it being in a studio, and I wasn’t allowed outside of Germany. So I recorded one song in the US when things opened up a little more last year. Other than that, it was mostly within the UK and Germany, which were my two bases. It was also difficult to navigate because both places kept getting locked down, so you can’t fly in between certain timeframes. It was a challenging album to make, logistically, but at the same I really felt like this album helped me through the pandemic and made me feel like I have a purpose and I’m doing something. It helped me digest everything that happened, so I really do feel like this album saved me in a way. 

Yeah it sounds like a very necessary distraction from everything going on. I love the whole record, but I think my favorite song is “The Other Side” because it perfectly describes that healing journey and when you’re finally getting over this difficult thing that happened. Can you describe the backstory about how the song came together?

So I had been on vacation once last year. I went to an island called Tenerife and I think that inspired a lot of the lyrics, especially in the first verse, like pink skies, cable cars…I had lots of friends getting married, so I was picturing flower bouquets, and I kind of just imagined seeing the person who I really wanted to be friends with at the time and having some kind of connection to but couldn’t at the time. So I just imagined seeing them and how happy they were, and how happy I was. I imagined a world outside of this world, where you know you’re gonna get there. Like you know you’re going to feel good at some point in your life, and it’s not always going to feel like a big dark hole. I have to admit for a big chunk of the pandemic I really felt quite lost, and I didn’t feel like getting up in the morning anymore. Not just for two days, but for a month or two months. I just felt like I didn’t want to exist. But in June last year, I felt like things started getting better and I started seeing the light. I started realizing like ok, it’s not always kind of obvious to get to the other side… We think things are gonna stay like this forever, but it was a great reminder to myself that there is always going to be another side and that it’s just a matter of time before you get there.

Yeah, sometimes the road is longer, but there’s always another side to the road regardless. Does it kind of feel like with all the festivals and the tour that you’re on, with having music as your career, that you’re kind of on the other side of the worst of the pandemic?

I think on certain days, absolutely. I think today is kind of a day where I feel like I’m being pulled back into this sad reality that we live in, reading the news…

Yeah with Roe V. Wade getting overturned today... What a terrible day to have calls and interviews.

Yeah you’ve got some days on the back end of a tour where you’re like this is amazing! It’s great, everything is lovely. Then you wake up some days and you’re just like what kind of reality am I living in? Is music really helping people? I think today is one of those days, and I’m not very good at hiding it either. I wear all my emotions on my sleeve. I think today just feels like one of those days where you thought you were escaping but then you realize you’re not quite out of it yet. 

I do think that music, and concerts especially, can be such an escape. Do you feel like an immense pressure in a way as a performer? It feels like every day there’s something else devastating in the news, so how do you balance that with being the lighter side to the dark times, but also still recognizing that horrible things are happening?

I do find it at times to be very difficult as a performer that there’s this expectation for an hour and a half that you need to make people feel amazing, so you need to feel amazing. On a day when you’re just not feeling great, that can be really tough. I have a lot of respect for people who have to go up on stage every single day. At the moment, it’s been weekends with us, so we haven’t had a full European tour yet or a full American tour. We were on tour with Bastille for two weeks and that was great, but I still have days in between now where I can kind of be sad and be emotional and then kind of pull myself together again like “let’s do this!” I feel like we’re all going through this emotional roller coaster at the moment like what you were saying about everything happening in the news. You’ll have days where you’re like “oh I’m listening to a nice song and the sun is out. Everything is great! I’ll just ignore everything.” Then you have days where it’s just up in your face and it’s there. The world is up in flames and it’s there, it’s present…and I honestly don’t have the solution to navigate it. I wish I did. I think it’s just kind of taking it day by day and also realizing that it’s ok to feel overwhelmed but it’s also ok to feel good and not feel guilty about feeling good. There’s no point feeling overwhelmed every day. 

Yeah I love that, no one can take on that burden for that long by themselves. We’ve got to lift each other up!

Absolutely! 

Well pivoting to a little bit of a lighter note, I wanted to talk about your personal background and your nomadic lifestyle. Did you know when you Google yourself, you’re described as ‘German-born English-Canadian’? Then with “No Roots” you’ve talked about moving around a lot, so I was curious if you find that your diverse background and being ingrained in so many cultures, has that made touring life easier for you?

I think it’s made touring much easier for me in the sense that I don’t feel homesick when I’m on tour. I really feel comfortable in most environments that I’m put in. I really feel like I can adjust really quickly, and I’m not someone who will sit around moping that I miss my home and my bed. Like I’ll miss a bed, and I can sleep better in a bed than a moving vehicle, but I’ve really learnt to kind of pack up my stuff multiple times and have my home be wherever that is. Especially with people you love. I’ve learned about myself that my home isn’t a certain place, it’s dependent on the people who are there with me. So that’s why for me, it’s vital to have my guys and my band with me, because I’ve been with them for such a long time. We met at university so I really feel like more of a band, rather than a solo artist having a band in the background. We wanted to find a band name, well I did– they didn’t! They said just call it Alice Merton. 

They’re like let’s just put all the pressure on you!

Kind of, kind of! I was like sure, guys whatever! We’ll put my name on it. I write the songs, so I guess it makes sense, but for me it’s still like the idea of having a sub guitar player is terrifying. I can’t see myself being like “this guy’s gonna play today instead of Regi.” Or having another drummer, it doesn’t feel like I want to do that. 

Yeah it’s great that you have a support system but you can be so adaptable! On the flip side of that, where have you found that you’ve had the most culture shock? Even if it’s just a specific state in America, since some states have their own culture.

Yeah that’s very true! That’s a difficult one though. I feel like in America, I’ve never had a huge culture shock. We haven’t played much in the South…We’ve played in Texas, but Austin, Texas is super cool to play in. I don’t think we’ve had dramatic culture shock in the US. It’s been more outside of that, like playing in Turkey for the first time and witnessing how many people are suddenly in one spot in Istanbul. Exit Festival we played in Montenegro. It’s more so other countries because I feel like in the US I know what to expect.

Well, speaking more about your stage presence, I remember you mentioned your outfit was designed by your friend. Does that designer typically do all of your stage outfits?

I do like working with him a lot! His name is Basti, or Sebastian. He is very, very talented at what he does. I also like to support designers that are up and coming, or just people I think are talented at creating new things.

Do you find that kind of influences your demeanor onstage, almost like a superhero costume.

Yeah like a stage personality, yeah absolutely. It really helps me get into character as well. I wouldn’t say I’m a loud, outgoing person offstage, but when I’m onstage I really feel like with the outfits, I’ve become someone who can—I mean “lead a crowd” is exaggerating—but to still be mentally strong enough to get people excited about music. 

Yeah it gives you that extra confidence! Are there any other musicians and artists, either visual or otherwise…or even films that you ever draw inspiration from as well when it comes to your stage presence?

I have been a fan of Keith Haring for a while. That’s been kind of an inspiration in some regard. Also, for music videos, there’s a Swedish director called Bergman, and he inspired the “Blindside” music video. It was black and white and we kind of took some of his scenes and adapted them to the music video screen. I think art is one of those great kind of outlets to get inspired from…even Andy Warhol. I really like that kind of art. 

Yeah I think that any artist or creative person is kind of subconsciously always soaking in inspiration. It’s hard to usually pinpoint something specific.

Exactly, you’re constantly being inspired by random elements that you see! Around Christmas I went to multiple museums which were fascinating. Even furniture and how certain designer furniture is made…that was really cool to see. We got to see pieces from Klimt, which was beautiful. But you never really know what from that goes into the music. I know from videos where I get inspired. I think there’s some moments where I’ve been inspired by Breaking Bad, how dark it is. Also Handmaid’s Tale. I love that series as well.

Awesome. Well wrapping up, do you have anything else coming up that you want to share or that you’re looking forward to?

I think what I’m looking forward to the most is just sharing “The Other Side.” Not just the full album, but specifically the single because I really feel like it helped me and I would just be so happy if it helped other people as well get to the other side and realize that even if they see darkness…At a certain point in their life, they have that reminder that there will be a time when it will feel better. I wish I would have had that reminder back then, I think that would have helped a lot.

Yeah I love that you wrote this song. It’s also summer now so it’s such a good summer anthem. Thank you for writing it and taking the time today!

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See where you can catch Alice Merton on tour here, and snag your copy of S.I.D.E.S. here.

A Chat With: Post Animal

Post Animal is on the brink of releasing their third album, Love Gibberish. The record marks both an unchartered era for Post Animal and a return to their roots all at the same time— they’re releasing the album independently after putting out their first two records on the Polyvinyl record label. In a similar fashion, the new songs blend nostalgic nods to influences of past decades while simultaneously conjuring up a futuristic vision. Equal parts whimsical and intense, Love Gibberish layers playful, hazy melodies with massive guitar riffs and an intricate production style. The album has such a cinematic quality about it that listening to it feels like a multi-sensorial spectacle, rather than just an auditory experience.

Photo by Courtney Sofiah Yates

Another factor that adds depth to the world of Love Gibberish is that the five members of the band— Dalton Allison, Jake Hirshland, Javi Reyes, Wesley Toledo, and Matt Williams—all contributed to the songwriting and production, while also rotating between instruments and vocal duties. Similar to the way you can scramble a Rubik’s cube in countless combinations, the members of Post Animal have so much fluidity in their collaboration style that it completely elevates their sound.

Ahead of the album’s release this Friday, May 13th, ANCHR caught up over Zoom with Jake Hirshland, Matt Williams and Javi Reyes of the group to talk about their experience writing and recording the album, their band bucket list, green screen acting, social media and more. Tune into the conversation below, and see where you can catch Post Animal out on the road this spring here.

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Kicking things off, can you guys believe it’s been five years since we first met and interviewed? It was in January 2017, so it’s been a long time.

Jake Hirshland: Where was that first interview?

The Hideout! 

Matt Williams: That’s right, I was gonna say it was definitely at a venue.

JH: Oh yeah we were in the green room at The Hideout! Wow what a trip.

MW: Was that… I don’t want to call it Psych Fest—

It was literally called Psych Fest! I just looked it up.

MW: I don’t want to say Psych Fest but it was!

Yeah, good memory! So not to put you on the spot, but looking back at these past five years, is there a highlight or bucket list item that you guys have accomplished as a band that you would call out?

JH: I mean for me, we got to play in Europe right before the pandemic. Thank goodness that was the time it happened, but we got to play in Europe opening for Cage the Elephant and we got to play some big venues that were kind of like beyond what I had imagined we’d play. Even in the dream portion of my mind, the venues weren’t that big. That was incredible and exceeded my goals. Some of those spaces… especially doing it in Europe. At least for our live shows, that’s a big highlight for me.

MW: That’s pretty much the same for me. Opening for Cage the Elephant was– it doesn’t even sound real to say now. Like I don’t believe that we did that.

Yeah, it’s beyond the bucket list!

JH: This new record coming out, I feel like it’s highlight status because I didn’t ever really expect us to be in a position to independently release a record and have the ability to do everything that we want with it. So that’s cool to finally have put in the time with it and made the plans and had the experience to have a full record release with every piece of the puzzle completed on our time.

I had some questions about the new album, so perfect transition! It’s coming out in two weeks, and from what I understand, you guys all got together and wrote it at Jake’s family farm. Can you talk more about that experience on the farm and any highlights of that time you spent together?

MW: The farm is just a really special, magical place. In the modern age, it’s nice to have a place to go to where you feel like you can decompress and so to speak “live off the grid.” I think that might have been the first time we spent, we had gotten together for the Levitation sessions, but that might have been the first time we spent 8 or 10 days together purely just to focus on a new project. So it had a very relaxed feeling and it was good for the family to get together and spend that much time together. To really just have to– not worry about anything—I was going to say just to worry about writing new songs, but it wasn’t a feeling of worry. It was a feeling of inspiration and a lot of ideas flowing. It felt really magical, especially because at that point it was a year and a half or something of pandemic life. So just to get away and only think about that music.

Yeah, sounds like a low pressure chance to hangout and focus on music. So I remember with the first album when you were recording at the lake house, wasn’t there some paranormal activity?

MW/JH: Yeah!

Did anything like that happen this time?

JH: No, the farm is not a haunted space! That’s a place where I’ve really put it through the wringer. I’ve been out there alone, and spent a week out there sleeping alone and nothing spooky seems to happen out there. That would be fine if there was a little friendly ghost out there but I don’t think there is.

MW: There’s visitors but they’re just human! Oh and there’s some animals. I think we spotted a badger—

JH: It might have been like a big what do you call it? A muskrat?

MW: Yeah one of those wildlife.

JH: I don’t think it was a badger.

You kind of touched on it already, but this album is being independently released, and the band has been very hands on with self-producing it. I believe Dalton did the mixing and engineering and then did you do the mastering, Jake?

JH: Oh, my brother did it.

Ah, I think I read that too quickly!

JH: Yeah, my brother Jared did it, on paper that could look like me. I wish I had the skills! He did the mastering and then Dalton mixed and engineered. We also had a new friend Jack Henry come in and do some engineering for us at Palisade. We did about half of the recording at Palisade Studios in Chicago so Jack Henry was really helpful for those days. Dalton kind of manned the helm and that was the audio team. 

[At this point, band member Javi Reyes joined the interview ]

What would you say were some of the challenges of recording and releasing it independently and on the flip side what were some of the rewards of being so hands on?

JH: I feel like there are challenges continuing forward, there’s a lot of decisions to be made and there’s not anyone necessarily telling us what to do. We do have a good team who’s all hands on deck and thinking about what we need to do, but I guess things could slip through the cracks if we aren’t on the ball. So that’s definitely a challenge.

MW: Yeah, it’s logistical stuff. I feel like a label helps with a lot of the support. Even merchandise, it takes care of that. The website and assets for social media, too.  

JH: It’s all stuff we used to do on our own, so it’s not like we’re completely new to it, but we sort of passed off the reigns to the label for a couple years. Logistically we would just ask if we could do stuff and their staff would usually take care of it. Like ordering a new t-shirt and all that, they would help with. So now if we don’t look closely and comb through everything, we just have to be a little more careful. I think we have been, though! My answer to the second part would be pretty much the same. I think us returning to laser focusing on every element, has made the quality really good. I’m really happy with it. Our merch coming out is my favorite merch we’ve ever had. I’ve always loved the designs but this one is no different, I love the album cover. 

Yeah it’s a little more personal touch from the band right? Any other feedback on that from Matt or Javi?

JR: Yeah totally, everything now has our stamp on it. It’s cool, and we’re even doing more than maybe has been done in the past. Yesterday we went and put up posters with wheat paste around the city. That was fun. It’s fun to be hands on and scrappy with it.

MW: Yeah it’s like we’re our own marketing team in a way at a certain point. I guess another thing that changes is we have to directly hire a publicist, instead of having a label be the in between. Those promotional kind of teams. But doing things like putting up those posters with wheat paste, and just being scrappy and having to do a little bit more work, but at least knowing everything that’s going on. It gives you more insight into what you need to do to take care of all aspects of the band, you know? It’s informative and good to get that experience! Otherwise we’d probably be lacking in that department.

JR: Yeah I can see from the other guys that everybody else is way more dialed in and focused on getting things done. There’s always something to get done and we’re really moving and grooving like a little business.

Nice, coming full circle with all hands on deck! Talking more about the record, there’s been a few singles released. I really like the video for “No More Sports.” It’s set in the future, 2038 to be exact. Can you talk about that creative concept, like who came up with that and how it all came together?

JR: Yeah that was all New Trash, the film company. They came up with this idea to have this big show and the dinosaur and the dragon. The whole thing was their idea! They came up with the year 2038—everything! They’re great to work with. We did it in about 6 or 7 hours and this green screen studio that they had arranged for us to go to up in Jefferson Park. We just cranked it out. They have a 3 person team, and one guy was the main director and he was giving us tons of great direction. Everything just moved really smoothly. They have an editor and CGI guy, so as a team they’re great! 

MW: Do you know that filmmaker? The New Trash crew? 

I hadn’t heard of them before but the video turned out amazing!

MW: They’re super super cool. They’re big on animation mixed with real people, so like Javi said, the green screen work. Then their animator, Nat, is just unbelievable. It’s kind of crazy what he can do. They work with a lot of musicians and music videos. I’m not sure if they do things unrelated to music.

JH: We did a full day of a lot of fun little bits but they just carved something amazing out of it. It’s hard to believe they were able to make something like that out of what we did together. They have the special touch. I feel like they’re a hidden gem and I’m so stoked we got to work with them.

Yeah it turned out really well! Was it challenging to act with the green screen? 

JR: Kind of! But that main director was like “Come on! Scream at us! You’re playing in front of 100,000 people! This is the biggest rock show of all time!” So he kept yelling that at us and directing us to jump and kick and so that definitely pushed all of us to our ceiling of energy. That helped. If he had just been like “do you thing” it would have been harder to know what’s the appropriate maximum of energy, but there was no maximum in this case. It was just go as hard as you can. 

That’s awesome! Well the music video is also a little bit of a throwback to 80’s hair bands, so if you could tour with any 80’s band, who would you pick?

MW: Oh, like every one of them. 

JR: Toto! And I think they actually do still tour.

JH: Toto if you’re listening…

MW: We’re manifesting Toto!

Putting it out into the universe. Well speaking of tour, yours kicks off next week. How has it been turning all of these new songs into a live show, and what else can you tease about the upcoming tour? 

JR: Jake has a new MIDI controller.

JH: Oh yeah. We have a little more samples and stuff like that, so that should be some fun atmospheric elements being added to the show that weren’t there before. That’ll be fun.

JR: Dalton has a new vocal pedal that sounded pretty great!

JH: Yes! We’ve been practicing these new ones, we’re trying to put a bunch of new songs in the set. The record comes out while we’re on tour, so people that go to the shows should expect to hear some brand new, never-before-heard music. Which should hopefully be enjoyable for them.

MW: It’s super exciting to practice the new stuff. I think we’re all amped to play them, which is always good cause it sets a nice tone for excitement.

JH: I think we have one of our most exciting and craziest songs ever, that we’ve ever written on this record, that we’re going to begin playing this weekend in Mexico. That one is going to be a hoot live.

Which song is it?

JR: It’s called “Infinite Zone.”

JH: Yeah we’ll be playing that one for sure, it’s going to be fun live. 

Has it been challenging to transfer some of these to a live sense?

JR: Some of them, but not that one because we worked so hard on it when we were recording that it got cooked into our brains. I think when things are more groove-based, it can be a little harder to lock in. Just like in a game of Horse, when you’re right in front of the basket, it’s harder than you think, but the trick shots come easy. 

MW: That’s a really nice metaphor! I like that a lot. So spot on. Simple is difficult. 

That’s so poetic! Well in general, what other music have you been listening to, particularly during the years of the pandemic? Anything that inspired you?

All: Turnstile! 

JH: A bunch of us got down a big rabbit hole just with everything about that band. It seems like a very popular opinion these days cause they’re blowing up, but that was a big one for sure!

MW: Yeah they really affected me, in a good way. I also really like Charlie XCX’s new album.

JR: So good!

MW: It’s incredible! I’m blanking on the name of it right now.

JR: Crash!

MW: Yes. Those two have probably been the most listened to albums for me in the past 6 months to a year. 

Nice. Then I wanted to ask you guys about your Tik Tok. I know most people got into Tik Tok over the lockdown and pandemic, so last week I went down the rabbit hole of your Tik Tok and I love the video of Wes being like “What does your band sound like?” and the “Nightmare Tour Scenarios.” Are these based on real life experiences?

JH: Definitely, they are.

MW: You could say they were influenced by true events.

JH: They’re loose retelling based on a few characters we’ve met over the years. The mustache one is absolutely true-blue–

MW: Facts! 

JH: But we’re just playing around, hopefully it’s all in good fun.

Oh yeah, I got a good laugh out of it. Anything else on the creative Tik Tok docket for you guys?

MW: Content, content, content!

JR: I was just told that we should remake some “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” scenes with myself as Rick Moranis.

I can definitely see that!

JR: I was told it would go viral, so maybe that’s the next thing.

JH: That would be amazing. We have a running list of these kind of inspirational fellows on Tik Tok that tell you to know your worth.

MW: The know your worth, seize the day kind of thing.

JH: We want to try that, almost like Gary V kind of spoofs. We just have a bunch of stuff like that. I’d love to have some more fantasy content on there. Or scenes from Middle Earth to pad the Tik Tok. 

Yeah we’ll have to see what goes viral! It’ll be interesting. I saw some “Cancer Moon” posts yesterday and some viral jokes.

JH: We’re tongue and cheek with the viral stuff. It’s funny how important that is for music nowadays. None of us have really any idea how to craft a viral post so we’re just messing around. 

MW: That’s the goal, let’s just state it.

Yeah it’s hard to crack that Tik Tok algorithm. 

JH: Yeah it’s a struggle to feel like we’ve got to get a Tik Tok post, and everyone’s telling us to post like 10,000 times a day, but we’re just definitely still focusing on doing music first and foremost. It’s an interesting moment for the music industry for sure. 

Yeah your Tik Tok content is great, though. I love the humor behind it.

JH: Thanks for always engaging. We appreciate it.

So speaking of “Cancer Moon” I think that’s one of my top 3 favorites from the new record. Can you share a little bit of background on that single or any fun tidbits about making it?

JH: For sure! That one was, we got together, same as the other songs, and demoed it out at the farm, but the original idea for that was made up at the farm. I was there at the farm during covid, quarantining for a little while before I returned to the city. I had my stuff out there, so the chorus is kind of about the farm. It’s farm forward. That was really fun because it was very digital in its original form, and then we all came together and we were doing our writing session and translated a lot of these digital sounding things into guitar parts, or like making them have that real instrument feel from my synthy, demo feel. It really gave it like this 80’s shape to the sound. 

Yeah it’s very anthemic! And cinematic. I could see it being used in a big scene at the end of the movie.

JH: Yeah there’s a build! It was very fun to hear how it changed once the band came in. Some of them are written and made to sound like a band when they start and other times it’s fun to hear how the band really changes the tone. 

MW: It’s a very fun song to play, it’s one of my favorites on guitar. I feel like I’m playing the video game Guitar Hero. I also love the lyrics and atmosphere of it. It’s positive and feels good, and I hope that feeling spreads to everyone that listens to it. I’m really excited to play that one live.

JR: Yeah I’m very proud of it. I’m proud of Jake. I’m proud of Matt.

MW: I’m proud of Javi! I love having our guitars linked up in ways. That sounds so stupid to say outloud but that’s one of my favorite parts. The dueling dragons of guitar. 

Wrapping up, is there anything else you guys are looking forward to with the tour and new album? 

JR: I’m really looking forward to the album coming out. I just listened to the first couple songs walking over here and I hadn’t in a while. Now I’m on the side where I can hear it as a listener, and I love it. I’m excited for it to come out!

Yeah it’s nice to revisit it once you’ve finalized it.

MW: I’m excited to have that come out into the world and play the songs to people.

Yeah and it’s nice to be able to tour it. Stay safe out on the road and congrats on the album! 

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Pre-order Love Gibberish here and keep up with Post Animal on Instagram and Twitter. Lastly, if you’re in Chicago, they’ll be playing a hometown show in Chicago at The Metro on June 10th that you won’t want to miss.

A Chat With: Nation of Language

NYC’s Nation of Language has been a long-time favorite of ANCHR— it’s hard not to be instantly mesmerized by Ian Devaney and Aidan Noell’s refreshing take on beloved 80’s synth and New Wave influences. Nation of Language packs the familiar punch of nostalgia but also sparks the sensation of a breath of fresh air with their unique spin on an iconic foundation.

Following the release of their debut full-length record over Lockdown 1.0 (aka the Spring of 2020), a growing fanbase began to cultivate from the connection that listeners felt with Introduction, Presence. When live music could finally pick back up, Nation of Language toured and played sold out shows during the Fall of 2021—already gearing up for their sophomore album A Way Forward that was released in November of 2021. The duo has been back on the road this year in honor of that second album, and we caught up with Devaney and Noell before they played their show at Thalia Hall in Chicago earlier this month. Tune into the conversation below to hear which albums got them through quarantine, who they’d love to work with on scoring a film, their plans for future music and more.

Ian Devaney and Aidan Noell. Photo courtesy of Pias/Nation of Language

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ANCHR Magazine: What do you recall as your first musical memory? Either with creating music or becoming a big fan of it?

Aidan Noell: As a child, my parents had home videos of me performing on the fireplace, like stepping up onto the little ledge of the fireplace and singing and dancing for people.

Did you have a Fisher Price microphone set?

A: No I would just use whatever, like a baton or child’s golf club or something. They called it the Aiden Noell Swanson show.  I would just perform for anyone who would let me perform.

Ian Devaney: I have an early memory of I was in a Sunday School room. My mom worked at the church so I was always there waiting for her to finish. I have this very early memory of dancing around with dolls and singing “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by The Clash and someone walking by and me being like mortified that I was dancing with stuffed animals and singing.

A: They do say that the strongest memories that last the longest are shame or embarrassment. 

Well there you go! Fast forward to current day though, it’s been about five months since the release of A Way Forward. Can you talk about a highlight of creating that album?

I: Just getting started on it at all was such a highlight because we were totally locked down before that and we had no idea how long it would last, so the fact that we would bike up to North Brooklyn every day. It’s like a 30 minute bike ride, and to have that structure and regular creativity be able to happen was so refreshing. The fact that we didn’t know when it was gonna end felt very kind of free and open ended, like we weren’t on an intense time constraint.

A: The whole thing was a very pleasant experience. 

I: Yeah it was very nice.

Nice, it was a routine without a strict deadline. As I understand it, the whole process behind A Way Forward was very different from the process with Introduction, Presence because that was a long timeline of creating the first album.

I: That’s right, we basically had to work around our work schedules. Aidan was a nanny and I was working in cafes and restaurants and it was kind of like whatever days you could not work, you’d get into the studio. So it was spread out over a long period of time.

Totally. A lot of people have said with your debut album, that those songs got them through quarantine and lockdown. Even though you weren’t able to tour with it, you had many people listening to it. I’m curious if you have any artists or albums that got you through the initial lockdown?

A: I had a bunch of weird phases during the initial lockdown because we weren’t really doing much of anything outside of the apartment, so I was going through a lot of music documentaries on YouTube while I would sew or whatever in my bedroom. So I watched Bananas, which is the Gorillaz documentary, and it got me down this huge wormhole of Damon Albarn and I watched like every Blur documentary that’s on YouTube, which had a lot of live footage. So I had this amazing Blur phase—I mean I hadn’t really listened to them before other than that one song that everyone knows, and now I’m obsessed with them and they were definitely something that got me through quarantine even though they weren’t new.

I: I think this was also pre-quarantine, but Titanic Rising, the Weyes Blood album was definitely something I was listening to a lot. And have been listening to a lot of this trip.

For a second I thought you were going to say the Titanic soundtrack. Celine Dion all the way!

I: No joke though, also the Titanic soundtrack! I went through a huge phase of listening to the Titanic soundtrack. We used to leave the stage to the instrumental theme from it.

That’s awesome. This is really embarrassing but like two years ago, my top Spotify song was like a random James Horner song from the soundtrack because I would fall asleep to it. 

A: It’s so soothing! 

Anything else that you got into over quarantine?

A: I definitely started listening to a lot of Dry Cleaning during the latter part of quarantine. I loved that album, it’s so good.

I: While we were recording, between us and the producers we were sharing all this music back and forth. Laurie Spiegel is like an early electronic instrumentalist who has this album called The Expanding Universe and it’s just super cool music to just sit down and space out to. It goes so many interesting places, so that’s definitely something that kind of worked its way into our creative brains.

Very cool! When I was listening to A Way Forward, the first song “In Manhattan” had a very visual effect on me. I feel like I could picture the main character in a movie driving in a cab at night looking up at the New York skyline or running toward the subway in their morning commute. Have you ever considered or would you like to do a soundtrack for a movie or TV show?

A: Oh definitely. That’s definitely a goal.

I: Yeah, it’s super cool whenever there’s any sort of opportunity to have something set to film. There’s even been a couple things with skate videos or ski videos, so even that sort of non-scripted atmospheric vibe is really cool to see your music contextualized in that way.

Is there a dream director or cast you’d like to work with?

I: I mean if Paul Thomas Anderson ever wants to…

Let’s Manifest this for you!

I: Yeah, PTA look out!

A: Listen up!

Well on the subject of really cool things that have happened, you recently made a late night TV debut on the Colbert Show, you played some festivals last year and had a lot of sold out shows. Is there anything else on your bucket list that you’re hoping 2022 might bring?

A: We’re doing a lot of things that were on my bucket list.

I: It’s kind of like, I would feel greedy to think that I could desire more. I am looking forward to in addition to more touring and just being out to new places and meeting a lot of our fans for the first time, to also find time to hole up and write. I think that will be an exciting thing for me. And maybe I’ll go somewhere for a week and try to write there.

Like a writer’s retreat?

I: Yeah exactly, cause I’ve always just written everything seated at my desk in our apartment. So the idea of going somewhere else is appealing.

Where would be your ideal spot? If money and time weren’t an issue.

I: Oooh, money or time not an issue! Maybe Berlin or Tokyo, or Paris…

A: Yeah somewhere where there’s the option to be in the city and also the option to go to a very old rural place. A decrepit castle…

I: Even like up in the country upstate sounds very nice, even though that’s a very manageable retreat.

Have you noticed, it sounds like you usually write at your desk, but if you’re in different environments and out on the road writing, does that influence your writing style?

I: Yeah I think it can. Back when I used to live at home when I was younger I would try to change what room I was in and it does feel like it can. Even just listening to the same demo in a different room can give you a fresh perspective on what needs to be happening. 

A: Listening to your demos in the car on tour…it like reinvigorates you on the songs you’ve already written. So getting the opportunity to try to write outside of the house would probably unlock new things. 

Do you have anything in the works since the album came out?

I: Yeah there’s a number of songs and some of them, I feel like every album kind of overlaps the other one. So some of these had already been started when we were writing and recording the second album.

A: And they just weren’t exactly the right curatorial fit to be on that album. 

I: I kind of like writing as much as possible and then stepping back and sorting ok this is first album, this is second album, this is third album. It kind of lets you write whatever you want without worrying about ‘no this is supposed be a shoegaze record, I can’t have this kind of song on here!’

Yeah you can be like I’ll put this on the sixth album!

I: Exactly!

So do you find that you write a song for an album and then kind of stick to that theme for the rest of the songs? Or it comes together after the fact?

I: It mostly comes together after the fact. I think sometimes I do get into rhythms where like these four songs written within this concise period of time all really focus on a bass riff and that can provide glue for a record that you can attach other things to. I try not to limit the ideas to fit to what the record might be.

A: It can be frustrating if you’re like I need to write a tenth song for this album but it has to fit! If you sit down with that frame around you, it can be very limiting and frustrating.

Well, talking about the live show now, I actually saw you live for the first time in Brooklyn opening for the Wombats. I think someone else was actually supposed to open that tour so I went in blind, but instantly went to favorite some of your singles on Spotify while you were still playing.

I: That’s amazing.

I was wondering if there’s anyone you remember in recent years, well before the pandemic maybe, but New York gets a lot of live music coming through. So was there anyone you discovered after going in kind of blind?

A: Didn’t you go see Fontaines without really knowing what they sounded like at first?

I: Yeah I guess that was pre-pandemic but my friend was like ‘this band Fontaines DC is playing Union Pool” which is like a 250 person room. I was like yeah sure, not really knowing anything about it and it was awesome. Then our first show back, we went to see the opening band. It was our friends Gustaf.

Oh I love Gustaf. They’re here tomorrow

A: Yeah they’re on the same tour trajectory as us. We got to see them in Seattle.

I: The first show back though we same them open for the band Geese, who I hadn’t seen or really heard before. That was really cool.

Oh nice, they came to Chicago in January.

A: I’m trying to think what other shows we’ve actually seen since lockdown ended.

I: Oh I went to see this band called Foyer Red open for Why Bonnie? And I was a little bit familiar with both bands, but seeing them both live was really fun and it was a great show.

A: Our friend, who plays bass with us now, Alex MacKay, his band Cutouts, we went to go see. They opened for us in October and they’re really amazing. Very cool stuff.

Very cool. Well then life on the road in general, I know Ian was sick for a couple days recently? How has it been besides that?

I: Yeah thankfully not covid.

A: Yeah he always gets a cold that turns into a sinus infection.

I: But I’m feeling better now.

A: Got those steroids in you!

I: And antibiotics.

A: But otherwise, this tour has been really really nice.

I: It has been very nice!

A: Every city we’ve gone to has been so warmly receptive of the music and we’ve played some cool venues that we’ve never played before. I just love doing the drives. Also we have Alex’s brother on tour doing some documentarian work for us. Having just another hand on deck has made things very smooth for us this tour.

I: Yeah, driving and loading in and out

A: And just having fun and laughing!

Anywhere else on the tour that you’re excited to get to?

A: Well we’re going to Toronto and Montreal, and Alex and his brother are Canadian so they’re gonna have some friends and family out and they’ll be able to show us around. So I’m looking forward to that.

I: Also the band we’re playing with, Ducks Ltd., they’re Canadian as well.

Yeah I haven’t seen them yet but I’m excited to check them out.

I: They’re really great.

A: And they’re super nice too!

I: I also heard that Columbus may sell out.

A: I love when random places are good places for us.

I: You sort of walk into a  lot of cities having no idea if anyone knows who you are, so it’s always nice when you’re like ‘wow, Phoenix, Arizona!’ That was one of the best shows we ever played and it was a pretty tight club venue. But so much amazing energy. That’s been the coolest part of tour in general. Learning about our fans in a very immediate way, cause with the pandemic we’ve been so detached from everyone. It’s so nice to just actually see everyone.

Yeah that human connection can be very rewarding. Well the last thing I wanted to ask about was the song, it’s a few years old at this point, but “I’ve Thought About Chicago,” since we’re in Chicago can you talk about the backstory there?

I: It was just a bunch of our friends lived here and that line was just written in my notebook. I think we were having some conversations about places we would consider living and I just said that. Then I thought there’s some sort of ring to that….and the song just built itself off of that one line.

A: I’m from Kansas City, it’s not that much closer than New York is to Chicago—

But it’s like that midwest mentality.

A: Yeah exactly so I have some friends from there living here. When we did our first tour it was just like 3 shows in Chicago.

I: It was like two venues and a garage.

I miss house shows! I’m like I don’t know if they’re not going on cause of Covid or because I’m old now…

I: Yeah exactly. Everyone’s like I’m not gonna let that many people into my house!

Well wrapping up, anything else you’re excited about that you want to share?

A: Nothing on the exact docket but I think we have some songs we’re releasing over the summer.

I: And just more touring. This tour runs straight into a European tour. We have like 3 days off and then we fly to Ireland and spend 3 weeks over there.

A: I feel like 2022 is the year of the tour for us.

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Keep up with Nation of Language’s upcoming tour dates here, take a listen to A Way Forward below, and revisit our photo recap of their Thalia Hall show here.

A Chat With: Mondo Cozmo

Recently, ANCHR caught up with Josh Ostrander, better known by the moniker Mondo Cozmo, as he and his bandmates kicked off their tour with The Airborne Toxic Event. The tour takes place during the launch of Mondo Cozmo’s third album called This Is For The Barbarians, which was written during the initial stages of the pandemic and lockdown, and follows up 2017’s Plastic Soul and 2020’s New Medicine.

The new record showcases the duality of lightness and darkness, and the importance of still finding human connection during times of isolation. Sonically, the album has tinges of Bob Dylan influence, particularly with Ostrander’s vocal inflections, and it layers intricate, experimental production styles over rock and roll roots. Tune into the conversation with Ostrander below to hear more about his approach to songwriting during lockdown, the heroes that inspired him in the process, and what you can expect from the live show. This Is For The Barbarians dropped on Friday, April 8th, and you can order your own copy here, or pick up a copy on tour. Mondo Cozmo will be playing The Vic on April 14th and 15th, and you can snag tickets here.

Photo by Travis Shinn

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ANCHR Magazine: Kicking things off, I actually interviewed you at Hangout music festival way back in June—

Josh Ostrander: Oh wow…2017?

Yeah, so it was like peak “Plastic Soul Era” and you were on all the festival circuits! So I’m sure it was all a blur, but just wanted to say it’s nice to chat with you again.

It’s nice to talk to you again!

Well since then, a lot has changed. You put out your second Mondo Cozmo record, and now you’re gearing up for the third record. Just in general, how have the past couple of years been for you?

Well it was tough when the tour got canned. New Medicine came out and we were gearing up to tour in support of it for as long as we could. I think we were one week into the tour and that’s when the world kind of went crazy. We canceled the tour, flew the band home…it was a scary time you know? I got back to LA and my wife and I decided to get out of LA, and we moved to a town called Twin Peaks up near Lake Arrowhead. We didn’t know what was happening, and we thought this was a good move for us. It turned out to be great, and I didn’t know what to do cause we couldn’t tour, so I just started recording. What would follow would be the record that’s coming out in two weeks.

I heard you dubbed the cabin you moved to and recorded in “Chateau Mondo,” which is very fitting. Is that where you wrote all the songs on the album?

Yeah everything was recorded during the pandemic and it was therapeutic for me to write that during that time. A lot of the lyrics have a lot of stuff dealing with [the pandemic]. It shows where my head was at.

Yeah totally. Do you have any favorite memories from your time retreating to the cabin?

I was always bumming that we put out the New Medicine record in the middle of the pandemic. I was bumming about that because I wrote and recorded that album to be a live record. I wanted it to translate really well to live shows, songs like “Black Cadillac” and “Come On” and then suddenly we weren’t able to tour, and I was like “Why did we put this record out?” essentially. Then one night, it all made sense to me because my phone started blowing up on a Sunday night. I was watching TV and all my friends were like “go to Twitter!” so I go on there and it was Bruce Springsteen talking about Mondo Cozmo. He did an article for the New York Times.

Oh wow, that’s amazing! 

Yeah they were like “who are you listening to?” and he said he listened to Mondo Cozmo. I was like, holy fuck. I grew up in Philly….

Yeah, he’s the Boss!

I know everything about the guy, and suddenly I was like oh my god, and I got in touch with his day to day person. I wrote her a letter and said I know you probably get a ton of these a day, but if you could forward this to Bruce, I would be so thankful. It was a really heartfelt letter to him saying sometimes with what I do, it feels like I’m screaming into the night air, but he gave me a validation that I needed.

That is like THE validation.

Yeah, it shook me, it really did. I used that excitement to craft the next record, but constantly thinking “But the boss is over my shoulder!” Like constantly thinking, is this good enough? No, it’s not…make it better. It was a healthy challenge for me I think.

Just a smidge of pressure…

Yeah, just a smidge!

I was actually listening to an interview you did where you mentioned when you were working on New Medicine that Butch Vig had mentioned he was listening to you back then.

Yeah, Rachel, it was the same thing– “go to Twitter” and I go and see that Butch Vig is saying he listens to Mondo Cozmo!

Wow, so you go from Butch Vig to Bruce Springsteen, who’s next?! You’ve gotta get Keith Richards on the next one.

That’d be amazing. The new Grammy I think is getting on Barack Obama’s playlist. That would be a big one.

That would be incredible! Well speaking of your new music, I really like both the singles you put out, “Electrify My Love” and “Meant For Livin’” and with the latter, I feel like there’s this cadence to it that’s almost like you took spoken word poetry or rap lyrics and slapped it over a rock anthem. 

Yeah that one was the first song I wrote during the pandemic. I was really proud, the lyrics came really quickly. I wrote it in about an hour and a half— I was missing one verse, but I woke up and I had it in my head and just recorded it. It’s very Dylan-y and I was like, fuck it, just go with it. The lyric “here’s to hoping that you get out alive”—In the band, we almost joke about it, but it was a pretty honest statement at that time in the pandemic. I didn’t know if my dad was going to get sick…we’re wiping down groceries…It was crazy times. It’s been nice seeing people’s reactions to that one.

Yeah. You mentioned Dylan, I definitely picked up on that. Were there any other particular influences that inspired you with that song?

When I started that one I was like I would love to make this feel like a Johnny Cash song. Whenever we go through New Orleans, I always try to see the big brass bands and stuff. I was like man if I could combine those worlds and add a little Mondo into it, I think it will come across very original.

Yeah it’s definitely its own but it sounds like you had some good influences behind it! 

That’s awesome, thank you. It’s been going over really well live too, it’s been fun. 

I’m excited to hopefully see it in Chicago! So generally with the whole album This Is For The Barbarians ,I know the title was influenced by David Lerner and the Barbarian poets of the 1980s. What was it about their work that spoke to you most?

I was reading a lot of this poetry book that’s called The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. It’s awesome, it’s just like a selection of amazing writers and this one guy, every time I’d read it, I’d be like holy fuck…and it was always this guy David Lerner. This guy, I’m just really dialed into this guy, so I order more of his poetry books. There’s one called I Want a New Gun and it came in the mail, it’s a little poetry book. I opened it up and the preface is this blank page and in very small font, it said “This is for the Barbarians.” I was like wow, this is powerful. Whatever follows this, I’m in. It really resonated with me and I think it’s the perfect title for what I’m working on. 

That’s awesome. And the fact that you read that book and didn’t even necessarily know the poems you had a pull to were all by David Lerner seems like it was meant to be.

Exactly, yeah. He’s been a nice influence on me. I wish there was more work of his that I could find.

With the album, there’s an underlying theme that death and life can be celebrated synchronically, and lightness existing in dark times too. I think that’s been something heavily prevalent during the pandemic, and just trying to find the silver linings during these devastating times. Is that something that drove your writing on the record?

Yeah during 2020, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer and he was a huge influence on me, he was the best. He was dying of cancer and I would drive up to see him and spend time with him in Northern California. When I would go up and see him, I would always take along demos of songs and I’d work on lyrics going up and back, driving back and forth. It was heavy but it was beautiful and it was just part of the process for me. But it was beautiful to be there with him when he went. It was powerful, and it really impacted the lyrics for me. 

I’m really sorry for your loss. There’s a duality of that loss and pain and then creating art from a tragedy. I’d say that’s more productive than a lot of people who experience loss!

I also heard that “Electrify My Love” was written last for the record, but you wrote it with the intention of being the first song on the album right?

I had a record that was very much I wanted it to be fun sequencing with the songs. Everybody put a lot of work with the mixing and the guy who mastered it. The flow of the record was super important, where certain songs run into other songs…it was a wonderful task to undertake. But I wanted something, harking back to Springsteen, he always comes out one,two swinging on his albums. So I knew I wanted a big, big track to open the record. I wanted it to be a long intro with a calming sense to it, and the opening lyric to be “good evening everyone, I hope this finds you well.” Like a sincere check in on everyone after the two years we just had.

Yeah totally, well talking more about the process of bringing the record together, you recorded everything at home. Did you produce everything, or did you work with anyone else on that part?

I always record myself. Whenever I record with anyone else…it just doesn’t work for me. I’m very much best when I’m left on my own. With this one, it was cool because I could ask people to send me stems or they could record at their home and send it to me, and I could just load it in. That was beautiful and that was fun. My friend Peter Hayes helped a lot on the record, like he did with New Medicine. He’s in a band called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, he’s been just a great wall for me to bounce things off of. 

That’s awesome! I feel like that’s one of the silver linings that came out of the pandemic as well, it’s easier to connect more remotely with people. I heard of a lot of bands recording that way during lock down. If you always prefer working alone, that’s probably your dream to just record at home rather than going into the studio!

Yeah I’m excited because we’re starting to get albums coming out that were written during the pandemic, and I think we’re going to be flooded with a bunch of great music and really powerful stuff. I’m really excited.

Yeah me too! Well as you mentioned, there’s still a pandemic, but the world is obviously opening up a bit more and there’s been more tours going on. You’re in the midst of tour with The Airborne Toxic Event now.

Yeah our third show was last night and we just started getting good! The first show I was like I don’t even know how to do this. I haven’t talked in…how long? But finally last night I was like ok, I’m good to go!

Yeah you had to dust yourself off and get back in the groove! How has it been going besides getting back into it? Any cities you’re looking forward to visiting?

I’m excited for this tour—we were going to push the record back to be honest because we wanted to be able to tour. I was like I’m not gonna be the guy who puts out two records during a pandemic, so we were going to push it because we didn’t have any tours or shows. I was scared to go out, and then Airborne invited us to do this run. So we decided to stick to the plan! The record comes out on April 8th, which is my birthday. I’m going to be in my hometown of Philly on that night, at the TLA where I used to go as a kid. So I’m really looking forward to it. 

That’ll be a highlight! Your birthday and hometown show in one night.

Oh my god there’s gonna be a grown man crying on stage, it’s going to be excellent!

You had to take that tour then! So for fans coming out to the show, will you be playing a mix of New Medicine and the third record?

Yeah it’s been challenging because I remember in 2017 when you saw us, we had ten songs, they’d be like we want you to play for 75 minutes, and we’d have had to play the set twice. Now we have forty songs and it’s fun. I would like to play longer but we are filling every second of that set up with every song that we can. We did “Come On” and “Black Cadillac” from New Medicine and then “Shine” and “Plastic Soul” from Plastic Soul and then “Electrify My Love” and “Meant For Livin’” from the new one. We have like an 8-song set and it’s something to see I think.

That’s got to be hard once you have more songs in the catalog and you only have a certain time slot. I’m glad to hear you’re fitting in a mix! Are you planning on a headline run after this one?

We’re hoping to do an East Coast run this fall, maybe another support run as well! I definitely want to go back to Philly. The phone’s starting to ring again, it’s nice to hear the phone ring. 

Yeah totally, it’s been very touch and go with touring but it seems like we’re in a good spot for it now. I’m happy to see you’re getting back out there.

Absolutely!

Anything else you’d like to mention before we wrap up?

I think just the main thing is I hope people sit down and listen to the record from front to back. That’s my goal. I guess that’s it though! 

Yes totally, I think people are barbaric (pun intended) when they don’t listen to an album in order for at least the first time!

A Chat With: Gustaf

Gustaf is a band founded on equal parts persistence and hard work, with a touch of happenstance thrown in there. The group had an impromptu inception in 2018, when Tarra Thiessen requested Lydia Gammill’s assistance to drive her van down from New York City to SXSW Festival for a tour with a different band that ended up not working out. Rather than cancel the trip, Gammill and Thiessen pulled together a new group of musicians to perform in lieu of the other project— and the rest was history. Since then, Gammill, Thiessen and their bandmates Tine Hill, Vram Kherlopian, and Melissa Lucciola have taken nearly every opportunity they’ve had to keep playing music as Gustaf, and they’ve garnered quite the reputation for their cathartic and intense live shows.

During their first two years as a band, Gustaf hadn’t released any recorded music, but they saw continued success thanks to word of mouth and their eagerness to put on incredible performances in a variety of spaces. This year, the band has graced the world with a tangible audio debut in the form of their first record, entitled Audio Drag For Ego Slobs. Released on Friday, October 1st, the debut album showcases a mix of art punk mayhem and an edge of playful performance art that they’ve become known and loved for. In celebration of the album release and Gustaf’s upcoming tour, ANCHR recently chatted with Lydia Gammill. Tune in below to hear about the series of fortunate events Gustaf has experienced, their favorite thing about the NYC music scene, who they’d love to collaborate with in the future, and more.

Photo by Juan Blanco Garcia. Gustaf is Lydia Gammill, Tine Hill, Melissa Lucciola, Vram Kherlopian, and Tarra Thiessen

ANCHR Magazine: Kicking things off, when you got into making music, what was your biggest inspiration for starting to create and write music?

Lydia Gammill: It’s kind of a dorky story. I was a teenager growing up in a preppy part of Massachusetts— this was a pre-Spotify era—and I was desperately looking for some sort of subculture or underground. I was illegally downloading songs off of Myspace, trying to find a local scene. I was a Harry Potter fan at the time, and my friend was like “Oh my gosh, this band Harry and the Potters, let’s go see them!” They would have all ages shows, so I went to one with her. This local band opened up for them and I remember sort of going to shows and watching them and being like “huh, they have a band, and they’re writing music… I think I can write songs!” My friend Casey was the one who dragged me to the show and we started this little band in high school called World Jump Day. World Jump Day is this hippie-dippie physics theory that if you got everyone in the world to jump at the same time, it might change the gravitational force of the Earth so it’s a little bit further away from the sun, to prevent global warming. So some of the first shows I was going to are these Harry and the Potter shows, and this place in Harvard Square would have open mic nights every Tuesday and I’d go and watch people. I kind of had to see someone else going for it, and be like I think I can do that! I’d always sung and acted, but I got a guitar for Christmas when I was like 15, then my twin brother got an electric guitar and I started playing his. I think when you’re starting out playing music and playing other people’s songs, you don’t think you’re allowed to write songs. Like you think there has to be some sort of fanfare or class that you’re supposed to take to be allowed to make the thing, and that realization was really fun and empowering to be like there’s no rules, you can just do it. I think when you’re a young struggling artist, hearing that advice is really frustrating because it’s like but how? I think 15 years later, I know that is what you have to do. You have to try it and not worry about the consequences. It’s easy to think something’s supposed to be perfect and fully formed before you do it, but the harsh truth is that rarely is that the case. You just learn by making more stuff.
Yeah exactly, it’s the “fake it til you make it” approach. 

Yeah there’s a famous study with pottery and I think paper airplanes— Where they take two groups of students, and one group is like to make the best paper airplane or the best clay pot, and the other group is just asked to do as many as they can. It’s always the quantity group that ends up having the best products. I’ve also heard that other studies say the amount of effort to make something really good, starting out if you’re putting more effort in, it will be better. However, with the completion of each thing, you at first will start with a lower quality with the quantity method, but every time you complete something, it makes your starting point for the next thing that much easier. So you get better and faster over time. 

Yeah that makes sense because you have more practice doing it, so it will get better over time. 

There’s something to be said about learning more and more each time you do something. But sometimes I don’t always follow that advice. 

Yeah I understand that, that struggle of revising too much. Speaking of creating, congratulations on finishing the debut album! Can you talk a little bit about your creative process with writing these songs and collaborating with the band?

The whole band started because Tarra had a van she had to get down to SXSW. She was going to take it down for another tour that ended up falling through, so she asked me if I wanted to help her drive. I was like, is there a way I could play shows on the way down? I was playing in some other bands at the time, but I was trying to do my own thing. We took the rhythm section from the band that was going to use the van at SXSW,  we took the drummer and the bassist, and Tarra’s boyfriend was along for the ride so we threw him in there, and we had Tarra on vocals and percussion. We just had to hit the ground running, so we ended up having shows booked before we had a name or before we practiced. The first get together of the original line up was taking photos in Tarra’s apartment. I’d had a couple of solo projects and mostly played in bands the first 7-10 years of my musical life in Brooklyn. It was hard to keep momentum with that and getting everyone together. It’s a weird pressure being in charge, but with Gustaf, I didn’t really have time to second guess or overthink. We just had to make it work right then. So I had to send people my demos, make a Facebook and Instagram account. We had to put it out there in a way that I hadn’t necessarily done with anything before that, and that kind of method ended up being a driving force of the first couple of years. We played live for two years before the pandemic, and it ended up being an important part of our start and how we ended up being able to put the car in neutral and shove it down the hill to get it going. 

That’s great, it sounds like it was all a right place-right time scenario. 

I also was working as the booker upstairs at Piano’s, which is a place in New York. That was a really hard room to book, I just had a lot of people be like “We’d love to play, but I don’t think we’re ready,” and I just remember being so frustrated with them being like “You’ll figure it out! Just say yes to the show.” So having that experience and this band coming together so quickly, and just seeing that you could start with a nugget of something and figure it out on stage, and kind of not thinking and doing as much as you can. Pretty much after that first tour, anyone who asked us to play a show, I would just say yes to it. If the original members couldn’t play, we’d get random friends to fill in. It was a fun and exploratory experience where every show was unique and different. We were just having fun and figuring it out, and trusting that you can make magic happen from whatever is there. My rule for Gustaf is that there’s no mistakes, only new arrangements. That’s the fun part of the live show, there wasn’t always a strict arrangement to begin with, and we were always approaching each show as its own little thing. We would just go with whatever was happening. Also, I did some improv comedy in my early 20s, which I wasn’t very good at, but that was another important lesson in learning how to be comfortable and confident with things going well or not going well onstage. Looking back, it’s little bricks that lead to this.

With the music, the songs that I wrote to get us started, I was focused on getting out of my head. I would usually make a drum loop and then find one bass line that I thought was interesting and sustaining, and then I’d do a second bass line on top of that and do some vocals. From there, the band just kind of elaborated and wrote their own parts. Now, for the second album that we’re going to start working on after this one comes out, some of the stuff we have been writing together. It’s more of a mixed approach. We also took a long time to figure out how we wanted to make this record because I wanted the first thing we put out to sound good and make a good impact, but it was hard to figure out what we’d developed onstage and what of that we wanted to keep, and what we wanted to expand upon. Music is different in a live environment than in the studio environment, so it definitely took a couple of tries just figuring out what recording method would work best for us. I have to thank the band for their patience and perseverance. We’d be on tour and we’d be like let’s get into a studio for a day and see what the set sounds like now, just as it is. You can’t really finish a record that way, so it wasn’t until we got our record deal right as the pandemic hit— Then we had pretty much a year to figure out how we wanted to record and make our formal introduction into the world of solid sounds, not just the ephemeral whiplash we were doing onstage before.

Yeah I love how there’s that improv aspect to it with performing it live, versus when recording you have to decide how you want the songs to live on.

Yeah that’s a “me problem”, too. I really love doing things differently every single time, and I realize that part of me is a little bit different than the world of recording artists and musicians who are used to being like no, we set the part, we’re going to do it that way and repeat it that way forever. Then you record it that way. I can get easily distracted, or every time I try to find a new exploration of sound. Which is fun as a performer, but when you sit down with a bunch of different takes, it’s a lot to comb through. So making these decisions earlier on will be a bigger part of the next album. Also, another part that’s difficult about the recording process, as a band in NY, as opposed to another scene, we all have backlines here so you don’t have to bring a lot of gear to a show unless you’re very specific about your sound. We travel light, and as much as we can, we’re very scrappy when we travel. Whatever we had, we would use, just so we don’t have to lug a bunch of stuff around. So we didn’t necessarily have those moments of being like this is our sound! We were always bending and being very malleable to the situation that we were in, and letting that influence how we were going to do the sonic arrangement. Also when it comes down to making the decision of how do we want the bass drum to sound, how do we want the vocal references to be, etc..those are a lot of questions we hadn’t ever set in stone. It was a fun exploration. 

Yeah, it sounds like you could really work with whatever you have available. You know you’re truly creative when you can work with what you’ve got in front of you.

Yeah I find that very inspiring too. I like using what’s in my fridge to make something. Those types of boundaries...especially for me as someone who overthinks so many possibilities, having a limited palette to make a meal or make a song with, that’s very fun and freeing because you can blow out that limited option. To see how much you can expand upon a very small amount of things, is a fun exercise, whereas if you have everything at your fingertips, there’s choice fatigue. 

Yeah there’s that Paradox of Choice that comes into play.

I had a German friend staying with me once and she went to the grocery store and she was like “I just looked at all your cereal, you have so many cereals here!”  We like choice here.

Yeah it can be daunting to have so many decisions. So circling back on the New York scene, I was going to ask what your favorite aspect about it is at the moment. Is it the fact that there’s a lot of backline?

100% that there is a backline! We’ve done tours in a minivan with five of us, and there’s no way we’re putting drums in there. So we’ve gotten very good at asking the local bands to borrow their drum set. One time we played in Houston and we were booked with an electronic act, so magical Tine knew someone in Houston who had a drum kit we could borrow, and then we showed up and we didn’t have any amps because we were flying and couldn’t have much gear. We ended up DI-ing everything, and we just had a drum kit on stage. The New York scene is great because there’s a lot happening here and it’s very expansive. You can just go to shows and hang out, and it might not feel like it, but if you look back after a year, you end up meeting a lot of people. Those connections help you get shows and get your foot in the door. There’s a lot to be said about hanging out and getting to know people. We didn’t have any recorded music until last year, but we were able to play a lot of shows in NY and outside of NY because we’ve all been musicians in the scene for the last 10 years or so and we know people. Then if you play good sets and people like you, they book you again. It’s all of those personal relationships that we’ve built up that helped us thrive while we were still figuring out how we wanted to package ourselves in the permanent realm. 

Yeah that’s awesome. I remember I was talking to Native Sun a while back and they mentioned Gustaf as a band in the NYC scene they liked, but you didn’t have music out then so I couldn’t experience your sound yet. 

We still have only played a couple of shows with music out! I’m very excited about our tour now that we have music out because before, we just had to tell people to trust us to come to our show.

I read in another interview you did that “Audio Drag” is a concept that you took from Laurie Anderson. Gustaf now uses the tagline and named the debut album Audio Drag for Ego Slobs. Can you elaborate more on that concept and what it means in your performance?

That came from the early days of Gustaf when I was sitting down and thinking about what I wanted the project to be, and working within boundaries is something that’s comforting. Having some sort of umbrella thought that things could fall under helped shape at least the theoretical world that the lyrics would live in. I wanted something that was kind of cathartic and fun, but a little funny, and I would define an ego slob as someone who does a bad job of translating the outside world within the context of themselves. I liked the idea of having songs that have this indignant and sloppy narrator or character, and just someone whose hysterics are kind of funny in a way. You know when someone’s freaking out in a movie, but it’s a little bit funny? Our strong peaks of emotions feel very intense to us, but if you step back, we’re all kind of a little bit ridiculous. I think it was a universal feeling of someone feeling like they are right, and someone’s wrong-- When in reality the person they think is wrong, thinks they’re right. So just trying to expand on those views. The songs are supposed to be from the perspective of someone who is having trouble processing their emotions and their relationships with other people, rather than an emotionally mature point of view. 

Yeah I was going to say in listening to the album, there’s definitely a theatrical element and that spoken word aspect in your delivery as well.

The pandemic kind of made the joke a little less funny, if that makes sense. Because we really are seeing people dealing with emotional extremity and intense stuff, so the idea of someone being a selfish jerk was a little less wholesomely funny in a way. So I did add that last song [“Happy”] during the pandemic. That reveals more of the sensitivities of someone, and we just want the best for everybody and that’s the most you can do. I like the idea of the “hurt brute” or the “sensitive brute.”

Yeah and sometimes all you can do is laugh through the hard times, so it’s good you can still kind of bring that humor in play during these times!

The music video for “The Motions” was recently released, can you talk a little bit about that artistic direction behind it? I really liked the cinematography of it.

Yeah that was great! For the music videos for this album cycle, there’s definitely a small thread that I wanted to be tied through all of them. So there was the process of an ego slob reprogramed. “The Motions” is a rip on the motions we go through every day, and I thought of it as someone having their inner monologue and set of rules to try to keep them on track as they go through their life, but not being able to suppress the hysteria inside. The director Araque Blanco is here doing a graduate program, and he’s from Spain. He’s done a lot of bigger productions over there. He DM’d the band, and we needed someone for the videos. I’ve been very lucky when I’ve needed someone, they end up coming to me— I’m not one to reject the offerings of life. We met up and I told him I had an idea for there to be this dance part of it with the band, and it’s about trying to do the thing or follow the rules that are set in front of you. I talked to him about this concept, and he took that and ran from there. He really is into great art design and costume, so that was fun to work with someone who has a specific aesthetic that they like. The cinematographer, Cory Fraiman-Lott, Araque actually found him on Instagram, and he has this great camera that he’s using for a feature this Fall. It all lined up that he had access to this camera and we could make it work. There were a lot of happy accidents. Also, Cory I found out on set that he’s really good friends with both of my cousins. The world is just so connected. Araque really killed it with the video though, he listened to my ideas, but was also great at taking them and elevating them with his own spin on them. His friend did all the styling. We sent her a bunch of pictures of all our clothes and she came and put stuff together. We shot at a park in Rockaway and Staten Island on two very hot days with a lot of ticks running around. I was worried about making sure the band was okay and comfortable and not getting heat stroke or being bitten by bugs. It was one of those moments where we were really tired and working through it, and I was looking around like well, this is me living my dreams, this is me in paradise! It’s very hot, people are stressed out, but I’m living the dream! I’m someone who loves that stuff, but I want better for people than I want for myself, if that makes sense. So I was like “Is everyone ok? Does anyone need water? Is everyone full?”

That’s great how everything came together with happenstance for the music video. That seems to be an ongoing theme for the Gustaf project, with starting due to the SXSW trip and up until now!

Yeah a lot of trust and going for it! It’s like fear is your friend, but you can’t let it stop you from anything.

Yeah, be fueled by the fear. Then as far as the recording process, I understand it was done in Honey Jar Studio in Brooklyn with Carlos Hernandez, and you co-produced? Can you talk about that experience and working with Carlos? 

My friend Chris who has this great band Nicholas Nicholas and works as a producer, I kept telling him I needed someone to produce this record, and he recommended Carlos and Julian [Fader] from Ava Luna. He was like they’re great, you should work with them and I was like yeah, I don’t know...and I spent another year and a half talking to a lot of people and then finally contacted Carlos again. We did the first two singles with Chris Coady in LA, which was a lot of fun. He’s such a top tier producer—he had a drum tech come in and set up the drums, there were so many microphones… For us, being scrappy people, we were like this is very nice and pro. I think for how I like to work, or how I’ve thought about this before, I definitely wanted for the album to be a little more present in the room. I like exploring every single option and figuring out how we do the best way for this and that.

For this first big project I wanted to figure out a way to be a part of the process, and Carlos is a really great and talented guy, but he’s also super wonderful in terms of working with me and sort of letting me be there for the process as well. So we could make a lot of the decisions together, which was really rewarding and not something you get with a lot of producers as well. He also works in Logic, which is what I like to demo in, so I wanted to work with someone using Logic where I could see how they like to do things and learn that way. We recorded in a couple of different bursts with the full band. We did all the initial tracking, then Carlos and I would clean stuff up, then the band came in again a month or two later to do a lot of different overdubs and stuff like that. Then we cleaned that up, and finalized the vocal takes. In terms of the band too, there was a lot of that fun, expansive sessions where we’d come, we’d lay a lot of stuff down and refine. We’d send it to everyone, get their feedback...It was a lot of sort of dumping and then cleaning, which I think was a fun way to figure out how to capture some of the lightning, while also adding a little bit more of that production element to it. 

I’m sure that will help with that process for the next album, getting that working collaboration with the band going forward.

Yeah,  and everyone is just so talented and has so much to offer, so I’m really lucky to have such great writers and collaborators in the project so that we can all kind of bring what it is that we do well to it. I think if anything it will get easier in the right ways as we go along.

For the upcoming tour with Idles, is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to or anything you can tease about your set?

I’m just so excited to be in front of an audience again, cause it’s one of the most comfortable ways that I have of expressing myself to other people. Social Media is great, but it’s sort of finicky and tough to sit down to try to write down words in the best, precise way. I think the band and I when we’re onstage, we’re in a wonderful state that is fun and fluid and directed at the people who are in that room at that moment. That’s always really rewarding to be able to crack things open and see what it is every night. I’m looking forward to that. I’ve also heard great things about the 9:30 Club, so I’m really excited to play there, and just play venues and crowds of that size. I think the most we’ve played to is 600 people opening up for someone at Elsewhere. And I love being an opener too because you start in a fun position where people don’t necessarily know what to expect. 

Yeah it’s nice to take the pressure off and get your set done so you can relax. It’s like going first in a presentation.

Wrapping up, You got to perform at a secret loft party for Beck, right?

Oh my gosh, yes! That changed our lives! We love you, Beck.

Yeah that’s amazing!  If you could connect and work with any other musician, who would it be? 

Well we’re opening up for Osees in December, which is really exciting, and John Dwyer came to one of our shows in LA in February of 2020. John Dwyer and Beck are both really nice and kind, supportive people that I’m just beyond grateful that I’ve been able to have conversations with. I really love Cate Le Bon, and just seeing her albums progress and being able to watch her style and her production approach evolve...I just really like how she produces music, so that’s one for me. Tarra’s been trying to get to David Lynch for a really long time. So if he’s up for it, we’re available!

I’ll tag him in this when I post it, you never know! 

Yeah if you could just let David Lynch know that we’re here, and any time he wants!

Besides manifesting working with David Lynch, is there anything else you’re looking forward to coming up or want to share?

I’m just excited. I want to do right by the world and make the world a better place. I’m excited to get out there and entertain people. Be safe! Be responsible. All the Gustaf good stuff. 

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You can catch Gustaf on tour with Idles this month, including a stop in Chicago on Friday, October 8th. See all of their tour dates here, and order your copy of Gustaf’s debut album Audio Drag For Ego Slobs here.

A Chat With: Valley Maker

Photo by Bree Burchfield

For many of us, 2020 and the early part of 2021 consisted of spending more time at home than any other year of our lives. When the world shut down, we had time to ponder about our community and sense of belonging, all the while doing our best to readjust in a time of constant uncertainty and doubt.

For singer-songwriter Austin Crane, these themes have remained a consistent study of his in recent years while he obtained a doctorate in human geography at the University of Washington, and during the creation of his latest studio album for his musical project Valley Maker. After settling into a new home and finding their footing in the city of Seattle for several years, Crane and his wife made the decision to journey back east to their native state of South Carolina in early 2019. Written around the time of that journey to put roots down again in Columbia, South Carolina, When the Day Leaves captures Crane’s observations and musings around this major life move.

On top of the lifestyle and location shift, Crane’s move just before the pandemic prompted him to contemplate even deeper questions and even provided additional perspectives to some of the songs on When the Day Leaves.

Just before Crane and his band departed on the first Valley Maker tour in nearly two years, we had the chance to chat about his big move, the cathartic nature of his songwriting, and what to expect at his upcoming shows. Tune in below.

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ANCHR Magazine: Going back to the beginning, what do you remember as your first musical memory that got you interested in creating it? 

Austin Crane: I grew up in a pretty musical family. My dad always played guitar while I was growing up and my mom played piano. So they got me into piano lessons as a kid, and I also grew up in the church in a small town in South Carolina where singing was a big part of that tradition on a weekly basis. I took piano lessons but didn’t really connect with it mainly because I wasn’t interested in the songs. I was listening to Nirvana and learning how to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

Yeah there’s quite a disconnect between those two! 

Yeah, then I got my first guitar for my 13th birthday. I really fell in love with it, and the cool thing about the guitar is that I could learn songs that I listened to, and that was a catalyst for me. I spent a lot of my middle school and high school years in my bedroom with guitar tabs, and playing CDs in my boombox along with a guitar. Three things about what I said just dated me pretty badly!

I think that was when I fell in love with playing music. I was lucky enough that even though I was in a small Carolina town, I had a couple other friends who got guitars around the same time. For whatever reason we all started to write songs and share them with each other and get some bands together. There wasn’t even really anywhere to play, but we would play in our garages. Having that community at an early age, I think that continues to be really important to me and the reason why I love music. For the collaborative aspect and the people that it continues to bring into my life.

Very cool, it’s great to be able to play the music you want rather than learn something unrelated.

Yeah exactly, and to use it as a songwriting tool and express myself through my own songs. Then share that with other people… From ages 13-15, there was a lot of discovery and euphoria around that process.

More recently, you studied human geography at University of Washington I was curious if you’ve noticed a connection there about how those studies have impacted the way you write and observe people for your songwriting?

Yeah, I actually just finished my PhD a couple of weeks ago, and it’s such a relief! Music and academia and pursuing this degree for the last 9 or so years of my life have been co-existing pursuits. I started this geography program and Valley Maker was technically already a project, but I wasn’t touring at all or releasing music beyond putting it online. That started happening when I moved to Seattle. For a long time, these were side by side pursuits and I think that they informed one another. I think a lot of the same reasons why I wanted to study geography are probably—not probably—they certainly were reasons why I was starting to write songs. There’s a question that I want to pursue an answer to or something that happened that I need to make sense of; Something about humanity or the inequality of the world, or the human experience that I wanted to dig into further. My research was on human geography and migration in particular. I think there are some literal or more direct lines I could draw with the new record that engage with specific political ideas around migration or borders. There are definitely some moments of immediate connections, but I think at the level of who I am as a person and why I like both of these things is that they are both avenues to explore questions and meditate on some of the mysteries of life and dig into that a little deeper.

Totally. It’ll be interesting to see if you notice a shift in your songwriting now that you finished your PhD.

For sure, and I’m still doing some teaching here. I moved to Columbia, South Carolina about two years ago now. It feels like the pandemic year didn’t happen…in my mind I lived in Seattle last month, but it was about two years ago now. I’m doing some teaching here [in Columbia] and working at the university. I’m keeping one foot in that world, and they’re nice enough to let me go on tour sometimes. I plan to continue to put out music and keep that part of my life.

That leads perfectly to my next question! I was going to ask about When the Day Leaves being written around that move from Seattle to Columbia. Do you think writing those songs around that period of time helped you process the journey and that big move, and acted like a therapeutic outlet?

Oh for sure, I definitely think so. It was the right move to make for a lot of reasons for my life and my wife’s life, and the life we’re building together, but it was hard to leave. I love Seattle as a city and I have a lot of pretty deep music communities and friendships there. I also really love the natural environment of Seattle. It was a very inspiring place to walk my dog and take everything in.

My wife and I are both from South Carolina and all of our family is here and as you can probably imagine, it’s so much more affordable here than Seattle as well. So we’d thrown out the idea of moving back eventually to this area. My wife is a mid-wife and she got a perfect job offer in Columbia. It’s a city where we have a lot of friends, it’s affordable and it’s actually pretty cool. It felt like when she got that job offer, this is the time to do it. So it raised a lot of questions around community and place and home and belonging and what the future holds. I would say a lot of it was that I was already sitting with this transitional period, and that kind of fell right into the pandemic.

Even the idea of going on tour next week, it’s like wow, I’m going to have some structure around music again. We’re going to be traveling. For 2018 and 2019 I was doing that almost nonstop but I haven’t for awhile. That was a bit of a tangent, but I think the record was the primary way that I processed a lot of that experience. I’ve always written songs about what it means to be alive and some of these bigger questions about place and family and belonging. Music has always been an avenue to explore those kind of things. I think the move back home, even though it was the right move, in a way it wasn’t easy and raised a lot of things to process around that. Songwriting has always been, and certainly was in this move, a way to sit with these questions that didn’t have easy answers. Some of the songs, like “Mockingbird” on the new record, it was written before the pandemic, but that was the most fitting song for how I felt through the pandemic as well.

It’s great timing you moved right before the pandemic. I’m sure it would have been more complicated to move during 2020!

For sure, it would have been way more complicated. It was also weird because in my mind it was part of the exciting thing about moving here. I made the record When the Day Leaves in 2019, just a couple months before the pandemic started. I guess it was starting to happen overseas but it wasn’t in The States yet. It’s interesting cause I finished that record and my label and everyone was excited to put it out, and we said let’s do this as soon as we can, so we booked a ton of tour dates and everything. Then we had this day in like March or April of 2020 where we all just got on the phone and we were like “this isn’t going to happen right now.” We ended up rescheduling those dates several times…I think these shows that I’m about to play this is the second or third time we’ve had to reschedule.

I know, I feel so bad for venues and booking agents because things just kept getting pushed back a couple months at a time and everything remained uncertain. Now with the delta variant it’s getting to feel a little like that again.

I know, it kind of feels the same way right now where the ground is falling out from under you. We decided to make the shows proof of vaccination and masked inside. I feel like that’s a lot safer. Not 100%, but it feels better and the right way to do it.

Yeah, Schubas [where Valley Maker is playing in Chicago] is requiring full vaccination proof for all shows currently. I hope with that we can continue to have live music keep going and avoid getting shut down again.

It’s so hard not to be angry about what’s happening right now especially having rescheduled everything a bunch of times, and feelings about people who are remaining unvaccinated. It makes a lot of sense to me that shows are for the people who did get vaccinated and who have done their part to take care of others.

I definitely agree, and in talking to a lot of my music scene friends here, we’ve all said we feel lucky that we tend to be the kind of people who have done the right thing.

I made that post a couple days ago [about the shows requiring vaccination] and was cringing expecting people to start a flame war with me in the comments, but it was mostly just a lot of support from people. And a reminder that I really like most of the people that come to my shows. The ones that I get to meet, I feel really fortunate that way. I’ve made a lot of friends through music. For whatever reason the people who are attracted to music and the project, I tend to have a lot of commonality with. That was a nice reminder of that. 

With uncertainty being a theme around your move and then the pandemic, has the pandemic shifted your perspective or given a new meaning to any of the songs on the album besides “Mockingbird”?

In some ways I wish I could answer that after this tour because playing the songs live is one of the main ways I experience and kind of feel the songs. you know. A lot of those connection points become most resonant in the moment of performing them for whatever reason. Which was another strange thing, to put a record out and not be able to go on tour. I realized even when I was in those high school bands I mentioned, we still did a little release show if we made a record. That’s always what’s made it feel real, in the world and tangible to me. So I’m pretty excited to get to play them. I guess other songs that might have evolved or become newly resonant to me are “Branch I Bend” and “When the Day Leaves.” Both are kind of about the cyclicality of life and time and how we move through different seasons, and some things change and some things remain the same. And kind of making peace with that, that’s something I’ve always struggled with. I tend to be a restless person and I feel like the pandemic was a major force to embracing that. To embracing life as it is and to find joy in the small things. In the daily things that make our life meaningful and to practice gratitude around a lot of that stuff. With those few songs, from the place I came in writing them, I’ve experienced that in a pretty real way throughout the pandemic.

Yeah I agree with that effect from the pandemic, it was really all about finding silver linings and practicing gratitude.

Yeah, and to value the things we’re missing. Like shows, I feel like even if there’s ten people at a show and we’re all spaced out, it’s whatever needs to happen to be safe in the pandemic. I’m going to have so much joy getting to do that again. It’s such a gift to be able to play music and I’ve missed it a lot.

Exactly! I feel like before the pandemic I was starting to get very burnt out from going to shows all the time, but now being back, I’m even enjoying 2-hour sets with a fresh perspective.

I felt a little bit of the same. Living in Seattle there was just always so many shows happening. You start touring and get to know other bands and musicians, so you have friends’ shows you want to be at and should be at. I felt like in Seattle I was always going to concerts and now moving here, Columbia definitely has a cool music scene and there are venues, but it’s not in the touring circuit in nearly the same way. I’m excited to get back out there.

Definitely! So you recorded When the Day Leaves with producer Trevor Spencer back in Woodinville, Washington, right?

Yeah it’s like 30 minutes east of Seattle, it’s a beautiful spot.

What was your favorite memory or moment about the recording experience?

I have a lot of really good memories, I kind of look back on it really fondly in the sense that it was my last experience with Seattle. My wife and I had already moved to South Carolina and she started her job. We bought this super old house that needed a lot of work…it was very affordable, but also not livable, so we couldn’t move in for a couple of months while we worked on it. That was a good season for me to make the record, so I went back out to Seattle for that in Fall of 2019. That was the last experience of being in this place, at that time, with that community of musicians. The people who were involved with the record are just incredible players and people I’ve gotten to know throughout the time living there so it felt really special in that way. The final moment in that place.

I guess the other thing I would say about that experience as a whole is that I’d never made a record like that where I just plopped down in one place for three to four weeks, and just made the record in more or less one sitting. We didn’t completely finish it in the time I was there, but we got 90% of it in that consistent day-to-day process. That was really cool and I feel like it allowed me to make the kind of record I wanted to make. One of the things I’m most proud of about it is it does feel pretty cohesive as a world of music and an environment that you kind of enter into. That’s something I’m always trying to do with creating music, but I feel like approaching the recording in that way quite literally created that. I only left the studio maybe two days of the whole time I was there. I was in a beautiful place with lots of outdoor space around it. It was a very immersive, continuous experience. That was a luxurious way to make a record and Trevor’s space out there is really amazing. This is the third record we’ve worked on together. He’s one of my close friends, but I feel like we’ve got a good working dynamic as well. We were able to really enjoy the time. 

Yeah, it totally translates as a listener to be cohesive and immersive.

It’s always weird to say things I like about my own music, but I listen back to it and it feels continuous.

Yeah, you should have pride in your work! You’ve also worked with Amy Godwin on a lot of your music. How did you start working with her?

Getting to play music with Amy is such a gift. She’s a pretty incredible singer and very talented harmony writer. She teaches choir for her work, so her brain very much works that way as far as how to fill a space or create a mood with harmonies. I feel like we met on a whim somewhat. When I was in college here in Columbia, she was living in Georgia and we got put on a bill together somewhat randomly. I walked into the venue as her set was starting and I was totally blown away. I was like, this is one of the best singers I’ve ever heard. I was working on the first Valley Maker record at that point and had already thought I wanted it to have a dual vocal quality. I always want my music to be a little bit sparse at times and remain dynamic, and I really like the idea of the harmonies creating an environment. 

Yeah, your voices meld really well together.

Yeah I’m so grateful to Amy as a friend and she continues to play music and make records with me. That’s a cool question to ask ahead of this tour because Amy’s going to be able to tour with me for these shows. We’re going to do it as a duo. She usually is teaching during the academic year, and since this is in the Summer, she’ll be able to join. I’m personally super excited about it because we haven’t gotten to do it in like three or four years. I’m also excited to play Schubas. I’ve seen shows there cause I’ve got some friends in Chicago and spent a pretty good amount of time in the city.

Is there anything else about the tour you want to tease ahead of the Schubas show?

No juicy details other than Amy being involved, but the set will be most of the new record since this is kind of a release tour for that, and it will also pull from all my other records as well. There will be a mixture. Amy has been involved with all of the records so we can kind of go across a lot of the discography so to speak.

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Make sure you snag your tickets to see Valley Maker at Schubas on August 28th here, and keep up with Austin on Instagram and Twitter.

Getting Heavy with Emily Jane Powers

Photo by Rachel Winslow.

For better or worse, through all of the loss we collectively experienced in 2020 and the first half of 2021, the pandemic has undoubtedly provided us all with more perspective. For many of us, that meant reprioritizing new ways to stay connected to family and friends, or becoming more attuned to our mental health. For an artist like Emily Jane Powers, it meant the chance to go back to the drawing board and the time to be even more intentional with her artistic process.

“I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what my goals are with music and why I do certain things,” Powers says about her writing and creating during the past year and a half. With that same persistence and purposeful outlook, Powers crafted her fourteenth studio album Isometry, which debuted last month on June 18th. While Powers has always been very vulnerable with her songwriting and often opened up about mental health in the past, she set out to shift the medium in which she communicated those themes this time around. “One of the big goals of this record was to speak through the guitar, and to have that be the main voicing,” Powers says, stating that led her to tap further into the works of Thin Lizzy and Marnie Stern as a source of inspiration. “I tried to channel that and have the guitar really speak for me. With my last record Restless, I felt like I was saying things with my voice in a way that felt very vulnerable, so I was attracted to the guitar voicing in a way to sort of retreat from that.”

Despite the influence that they provided to Isometry’s focal point, Powers admits she hadn’t really listened to much of Thin Lizzy before this project took shape. “I went back to a lot of classic rock and started exploring with stuff that I sort of missed in my childhood. I got into Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne and other stuff like that and just focused on using the guitar as different voicing. I have always loved indie rock and indie pop, but the guitar is sort of in the background in a lot of that music and I wanted to listen to music that was using that guitar in a way that I didn’t know how to,” she adds.

In tracks like “Blue Black Grey White” and “None to Come,” listeners still experience a sweeping range of Powers’ vocals— from gentle and serene to raw and gritty, there’s an emotive power behind the vocals throughout the record. Yet there’s a definitive correlation between the tones and the patterns of the guitar on this record and the way the music pulls at its listeners’ emotions— something that Powers and her band set out to convey on these tracks. Powers describes the emotion that the parallel thirds used by Thin Lizzy evoke from her, stating “I get weepy! There’s something that gets me really emotional with that interval that’s used. It doesn’t really matter what instrument it is, but when it was happening with the guitars, I kept noticing it again and again.” It was that emotional reaction that caused her to tap into using specific guitar styling to express herself.

Isometry’s focus on instrumentation and the escape that music can provide shines through on three instrumental tracks that Powers recorded at home— initially intending for them to be a project of their own. The first of the three tracks, entitled “Greenish,” kicks off the entire record, enveloping us in a swirl of ambient city noises and reverie. In a similar fashion, “Yellowish” and “Bluish” also have an escapist and therapeutic sentiment to them, providing me with a sonic haven whenever I listen to them. My first instinct when I saw the colorful song names was that they were a nod to the phenomenon of synesthesia, but as it turns out, Powers has never experienced that sensation and the colorful names originated from a more unique perspective. “This is going to sound a little bit strange, but I went out with a camcorder and I filmed trash that was a particular color. I’m interested in trash as a medium in a way. So I would go on walks in the pandemic as a way to calm myself and center myself…and film trash. I’d be like ‘ok I’m gonna look for blue trash today.’ I wasn’t like rummaging through cans, it was stuff that was on the ground, so I’d film it really close up and gather all of this footage. Then go home to put the footage on a loop and just write.” Eventually, thanks to a nudge from producer Erik Hall, this project merged with the remainder of the songs on Isometry. “That was another project that I was starting and didn’t ever really think I was going to share with anyone and Erik Hall encouraged me to merge the two different halves together. That’s why it’s sort of interspersed with these big rock songs and then these sort of chaotic, instrumental tracks that I recorded at home,” Powers says.

Powers humbly credits Hall and her entire band— Alec Harryhausen, Chris Smith, and Ryan Hurnevich— with much of the finished product, even including the specific tracklist of the album. If you’re a true music fan and still understand the power of listening to a full album, front to back, then you can appreciate an impeccably assembled tracklisting. As is the case with Isometry, a great track list reads like a good book or movie plot, allowing the songs to flow into each other like a scene or chapter fading into the next. “That tracklisting is a product of so much conversation with my band and Erik. Coming to that order was very much a separate art form that I definitely didn’t do alone,” Powers states.

The group of musicians also assisted Powers with turning her intention and visions with guitar styling into reality, and she credits Ryan Hurnevich with much of that task. “I wrote pretty much all of the guitar parts, but there were some ideas that I had that i just couldn’t play it as good as Ryan could. He’s got a totally different voicing than I do, and I felt like I wanted to play to what his strengths were.” One specific example of this dynamic playing out is in the song called “None to Come.” Powers said she wrote that track about three years ago, following the 2018 release of Restless. “’I’d been playing it and playing it, so I had Ryan come in. He joined the band and I wanted him to write a solo because I felt like I had written all the things to that song that I wanted to do and it just wasn’t sticking. Ryan came in and wrote this beautiful solo for it, and so I felt like the things that I couldn’t do, I was able to do in collaboration with my band and Ryan. Or Ryan was able to just make it happen. I felt like having his voicing in the band inspired me to have a larger sound and to play things differently. It’s cool to be able to be standing next to someone playing guitar, playing things that you wrote but in different voicing. You’re like wow, I didn’t know that my ideas could exist like that.”

Although the goal of focusing more on the guitar styling over any other instrument or component of the songs certainly challenged Powers, she was able to conquer the challenge thanks to that very spirit of collaboration. Speaking of the power behind collaboration, other snippets of the record came to be from ambient recordings and thoughts of close friends and relatives that Powers collected. This style of sourcing from those close to her also acted as a nod to some of her earlier material. “In the early to mid 2000s, I would use voice messages that people would leave me, in my songs. I would cut it up and use it as part of transitions or inspiration for a song. [For this album] I asked my dad and my friends in New York, London, Minneapolis and all over the place to just record what was happening around them. It was sort of a throwback and grounding myself back into older stuff and old habits,” Powers says.

Thoughts contributed from others close to Powers came into play with the song “Instead I,” a song that’s about anxiety and depression and sort of breaking that cycle of anxious thought. “I wanted to have other people contribute to that song to share their thoughts on the subject or the ways that they interrupt that cycle. Some of them are old friends and creatives, and it was a nice way for them to reflect on their own creative process,” Powers says. Throughout our conversation, Powers and I talked about the silver lining of the pandemic being that it allowed so many to reprioritize their mental health and open up more about their struggles. “Mental health has been at the forefront of what I’ve been writing for what feels like the past decade. The conversation has opened up a lot more in the pandemic and post-pandemic life in a way that I feel really excited about. To be able to share more explicitly with people ‘hey this song is about depression and anxiety’ in a way that might not be obvious to people,” she says. Funnily enough, Powers began the process of reaching out on input for “Instead I” before the pandemic. “Then what happened, after the pandemic started, that’s when I actually started getting the responses. I started getting my friends to respond in March, which I think heightened my friends' chances of wanting to talk about it because there was a lot of anxiety in the air. I think that sharing the song now, a lot of people have connected to it in a way so there’s that pay off in the end. I still give credit to my collaborators for being vulnerable and being brave to share their thoughts,” Powers adds.

Powers and her band weaved all of these pieces together during the recording process at Decade Studio in Chicago. It was in the studio that they were able to flesh out the massive sounds of heavier guitars and hard rock drums, mostly recording in a live band setting to capture the energy. Everything culminates in the final track “Warm Void Thoughtless,” which features ethereal, harmonious vocals and a sweeping finale that calls back to former chapters of the record. With each listen of Isometry, I notice something new and further appreciate every ounce of care and nuance that Emily Jane Powers and her band poured into the project.

Tune into Isometry in full below, or be sure to order your own copy of the record here. If you’d like to hear the songs performed live, in person, don’t snooze on snagging a ticket to the release show at Schubas on August, 5th.

Finally, keep up with Emily Jane Powers on Instagram and Facebook.

Finding Light in the Darkness With Fauvely

Finding glimpses of joy in a state of sadness and glimmers of light in bouts of darkness is a craft that many of us sharpened in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly turned the world upside down. The pandemic changed the way society operates and took everyone by siege, but the artistic and creative industries stand among the most affected communities— Especially those artists and musicians who operate on an independent scale, handling everything from recording to booking tours on their own.

Chicago’s own Fauvely belongs to that independent category, but that didn’t stop the project from carrying on and finding the bright side through the content they create. Lead vocalist and songwriter of Fauvely, Sophie Brochu, took some time in March to catch up with me on a phone call to talk everything from quarantine habits to navigating a CDC-compliant practice and recording space for the band.

“It’s weird. It’s a beautiful road because there’s marsh grass but then it’s also really creepy because there’s a mysterious old chemical factory and an ugly confederate fort,” Brochu says, detailing her surroundings on an evening stroll in Savannah. While Fauvely still has roots in Chicago, Brochu is taking the call in the Georgia city where she grew up; a city she and her husband have recently been spending time in thanks to the remote flexibility that the pandemic has provided.

Like many of us, Brochu expresses feelings of uncertainty and anxiety about where she may land once a sense of normalcy begins to return to the world. For now, she says the band are not turning down any opportunity that may come their way— or at least not allowing their current locations to be the deciding factor. For example, the group recently recorded a session with Audiotree in Chicago, which is slated to be released April 8th. Without a specific location acting as their anchor for the time being, Brochu says “I don’t know what that looks like for the future of the band. I do know that I’m not going to stop doing Fauvely. It exists wherever it goes.”

Photo by Aaron Ehinger // Fauvely is Sophie Brochu, Dale Price, Dave Piscotti and Phil Conklin

Our conversation took place on the anniversary of a poignant date— the day when Brochu and her husband had attended a pop up event at The Loyalist in the West Loop, showcasing cuisine from their own restaurant that had been slated to open later on in 2020. That night followed the news that Fauvely’s upcoming plans to tour Japan and appear at SXSW festival had been canceled, lending a bittersweet air to the event. “It was a happy night, but I remember being really heartbroken because we had just officially canceled the Japan tour,” Brochu recalls.

After that initial heartbreak and shock of such major events getting shut down, Brochu details a dark time period in early lockdown days. “I could not do anything except for puzzles. I was still working remotely, but I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write. I just had a lot of anxiety and did puzzles. That was what I had the capacity and space for.” Eventually, members of Fauvely were able to start getting together for masked practices after remaining isolated to stay safe. Despite a few delays caused by the uncertainty of the times, the band ended up heading to the studio in July with a goal of recording as much as they could; which led to them finishing up the new record Beautiful Places. “I sort of see that as the silver lining with South By [Southwest] and Japan getting canceled since that’s where most of the money would be going. It was like let’s recalibrate and make something good come from this,” Brochu says.

Surprisingly, although the duality theme that is threaded through the album seems to align with a common sentiment of the pandemic, most of the songs on Beautiful Places were drafted before 2020. The one exception was “May3e,” which Brochu wrote in May and had the original file name of “May 3rd.” “I like the idea of making each song a little time capsule. It’s nice to know the date when it was written. That was the last song written for the album. A lot of the songs we had already been working on the months leading up to that spring. That was the last one that made it on.”

Brochu credits a spiritual approach and her intuition as the driving factors behind her creative motivation. “I don’t like to force it. I know it’s always right around the corner. When it comes, it comes really fast. That’s how my songwriting goes. I’m just like a vessel walking around waiting for the message.” She also remains consistently influenced by the juxtaposing duality of nature as a muse and source of inspiration. “In nature, everything is laid out before you. When an animal in the wild dies, it decays out in the open, sometimes against a beautiful backdrop. There is no difference between beauty and suffering; it is one and the same. Humans have a funny way of quantifying and categorizing what is beautiful and what is repulsive. We want to preserve life. We have euphemisms and rituals. Fauvely is about blurring this line. For me, it's always had this underlying current of sadness and grief that only exists because of beauty. These are relative concepts. I know my happiness because of my pain. I feel pain because I've experienced great happiness. Experiencing life is a privilege,” Brochu says, explaining the underlying message of the new album. “These songs cannot be reduced to ‘sad songs.’ They're about choosing life with all of its pain and beauty and suffering. I'm reminded of Good Bones by Maggie Smith,” she adds, crediting the poem as an inspiration.

Along those same lines of making the choice to persevere despite challenging times, Brochu shares more about the band’s experience in the recording studio. True to 2020’s form with delays and cancellations, Fauvely’s recording session in July only came to be following some initial postponements. “Then the weekend that we were supposed to start recording, one of the band members had a family emergency and we were about to cancel again. They decided to push through and find a way to make it work so the band member could be there for the family and still do what they love in the studio with us,” Brochu says. While the circumstances weren’t ideal, she adds, “It was so meaningful and we all really wanted to be there doing what we love. It was a beautiful feeling of coming together.” Throughout this strange year, the band has continued to be there for one another, keeping in touch every day and supporting one another through the recording process. “It was a really beautiful experience because we all value and love one another and respect each other. We work so well together, and I truly love these guys. They make this project what it is. It would never be the same without them,” Brochu concludes.

Despite all the obstacles, release day for Beautiful Places finally came on Friday, April 2nd. While it’s not an ideal time to release music since bands and musicians can’t tour to promote their new work, new music like this record gives us something to grasp onto as we await for the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

Brochu hopes to be able to tour and play shows with Fauvely again as soon as possible, but in the meantime she’s already endeavored to continue writing— both in songwriting form and in the shape of a novel. Brochu does issue a disclaimer that the new music and her book project will be released in the distant future, but promises new music videos are in the works and coming soon.

As soon as it’s safe to host in person concerts, you can definitely expect to catch Fauvely on the first ANCHR showcase line up. For now keep an eye out for their Audiotree recorded performance being released this week, and snag your own copy of Beautiful Places here.

Stepping Forward: An Interview with August Hotel

Photo by Cassie Scott

Formed in 2016, August Hotel, the five-piece band from Chicago, radiate surges of indie-pop infused with indie—rock, perfected and polished with synthesizers bursting with freshness and fluidity, paired with poetic lyrics and hypnotizing melodies. Led by Jo Padilla on vocals, with Ryan Lammers on guitar, Dean Sinclair on drums, Cale Singleton on bass, and Craig Schwartz, Jr on the keys, the group captures a sound draped in nostalgia and emboldened by playful vitality. 

Before August Hotel hit the stage at Beat Kitchen on February 7th, we were able to speak with them about their latest single, “Disaster and Delight”... as well as their upcoming EP, the DIY scene, and the importance of promoting inclusivity.

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August Hotel were scheduled to play a benefit show for The Trevor Project on International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 27th 2020, alongside She/Her/Hers, Boye, and Hospital Bracelet. However, the show has been canceled in response to COVID-19. The bands plan to hold a livestream soon that will still benefit the Trevor Project. Be sure to check August Hotel’s social media for updates regarding rescheduling.

Anaïs Turiello: Would you all like to start out by introducing yourselves and saying your role in the band? 

Dean Sinclair: I’m Dean and I play the drums.

Ryan Lammers: I’m Ryan and I play the guitar. 

Cale Singleton: I’m Cale and I play bass. 

Craig Schwartz, Jr: I’m Craig and I play the keys. 

Jo Padilla: I’m Jo and I sing.

AT: Perfect! So, my first question was how did you all meet and when?

RL: Dean and I have been playing together since 2006. We started playing in middle school and we had a band before this. Then, we had a band that eventually turned into this [August Hotel]. But being as we are now, 2016 is when we officially formed. I knew Cale from high school; Craig and Dean knew each other from high school and we found Jo on Facebook. 

AT: How did finding them [Jo] on Facebook unfold? 

CS: Musician groups.

JP: Yeah, I was in a musician group and I posted some very low-quality videos of me singing LCD Soundsystem and Depeche Mode. 

DS: So, those groups can work, actually. 

JP: It’s not just for memes!

AT: What about the band name itself? How did it come about?
CS: We got it from The Great Gatsby. Here’s the thing—we wanted to be cool and get our name from literature, so we skimmed through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein-

RL: We kind of just pulled from whatever books were sitting around at the time I think.

CS: Yeah, and one of them was The Great Gatsby and I forgot what it is but, in one of the chapters, he talks about being in-

RL: It’s when they’re in the hotel and it’s super hot and they’re just drunk or whatever. 

CSJ: And the word ‘August’ was nearby. 

CS: The word ‘August’ was on the other page next to it and we put them together. We made a list of eight or nine names and we sent it to our friends and asked which they liked the most and consistently, August Hotel was the favorite. 

DS: Yeah and “Butthole Surfers” were already taken so…

AT: So, you all have been together officially since 2016. How do you think you’ve evolved as both individual artists/musicians and also just as a whole?
CS: I feel like we started by writing songs that we thought we should put out—like pop stuff and just a fast-paced sort of thing. I feel like now, as we’re going into our new EP and continuing to write subsequent songs after its release, we’re starting to experiment with different sounds. We’re using backing tracks and things live, so I would say we’re expanding our sort of sonic palette, both in the recording and live aspect. So, it’s not just pop songs all the way through and we can get more experimental and play with more sounds.

RL: I feel like it’s gotten a little more mature and a little more complex, which I think makes sense because we have gotten older and we’ve been playing together longer. I think we’ve always meshed really well when we play but the longer you play together, the more that happens. So, I feel like now we’re just getting to a point where we can play off of each other more and be more comfortable trying things that we weren’t in the past. 

AT: You mentioned songwriting earlier. It is sort of the same thing in terms of just playing off of each other? Or just what does that process look like? 

CS: I feel like our process has changed recently because we used to kind of go into practice and Ryan would have a riff and he would play it over and over, then I would add a bass line, then Craig would do some synth stuff and Dean would add a beat.

RL: It was very “jam it out at practice” kind of writing. 

CS: Yeah, and now we’ve been getting more into recording and more into studio stuff so we can put songs fully together in the studio and then bring them to practice and figure them out in a live context. 

RL: Like writing into a computer sort of. It’s kind of changed from messing with some things live to having little loops and things that we can mess with on the computer. You get that grid to move stuff around. I sort of like that visual of writing a song. At least for me personally, it’s easier to wrap my head around a song when I can see it all laid out than when we’re just in practice and it’s still being formed and you don’t really know what’s what. 

DS: You have to imagine how it sounds and it doesn’t help when everyone else is imagining something different too. 

RL: It’s easier to put something concrete in a computer than it is just jamming. 

AT: Could you also talk about songwriting in terms of just lyrics and how that process ties into it all? 

RL: We’re all over the place because it’s not just one of us who writes the lyrics all the time. 

CS: I sing all of my stuff off the top of my head just out of laziness so I don’t have to figure out a melody. Then, I just go from there and have a chord progression and everything after that. So, everything kind of happens all at once for me. 

DS: When I write the songs, I do it on the piano and I normally have the music prior to the lyrics.  Whatever I want to be writing about, I feel like I have an idea of what I’m trying to get towards in at least a feeling sense. So, that’s what inspires the piano playing and then whatever words come from that. Then, I send it over to them in a group message—like a piano recording or something. We all kind of do it differently. 

JP: For me, in terms of lyrics and songwriting, I think that pretty much any point that someone is trying to convey is all about storytelling—whether that’s through art or that’s through politics, or whether that’s through human connectedness in any sort of way. So, when I’m writing, I’m trying to communicate something through telling a story. It might be a personal experience, it might be somewhat tangentially related to an experience, or it might be escapist in some way. I see a lot of these things as “do nothing without a purpose” and I think that really bleeds through to our songwriting. 

AT: Wow, very well-stated. My next question was about the Chicago music scene. Since you are all from the Chicago area, could you talk about how the music scene here has helped you evolve as a band or just your experience as a band within the scene? 

DS: We wouldn’t be playing at a sold-out show tonight without it. That’s for certain. 

RL: It’s been kind of an interesting progression there because we all grew up in the suburbs, so a lot of the earlier DIY stuff was out there. Then, once we started playing in the city, I think initially there wasn’t so much as a sense of community but I think over the past year or two, we’ve ended up getting in touch with the same bands and getting in touch with more people and it’s starting to feel like there’s this really tight-knit sense of community. I also think a lot of music adjacent—like Chicago Soundcheck, who is sponsoring the show tonight, has also helped grow the community and there’s now a lot more of a network between the artists than there used to be about two or three years ago. It’s been really great; we’ve gotten to put together some really phenomenal shows. 

CS: It’s just really nice to be a part of a music scene that has a sense of community. Before, at times, it would sort of feel like a competition every night. It felt like a battle of the bands every night basically when we were all just trying to play a show. We would be all chill and cool in the beginning but by the end of the show, no one was talking to each other or looking at each other. No one would be like, “Hey good show, man!” So, it was really hard to kind of feel that sense of it but I feel like with bands like Ember Oceans and Capital Soirée, we kind of have that initial unit that built sort of a community for us and now we’re meeting all these bands that are super cool and everyone hypes each other up before and after our set. 

DS: You overlap fanbases ideally. I’m very happy to be a part of this whole thing. 

RL: This show was kind of born out of wanting to do more of that because about exactly a year ago, around the end of January 2019, we did a show with Ember Oceans, Friday Pilots Club, and Capital Soireé that we put together after about a year or two of playing with these bands individually. We knew each other all very well by then and wondered why we had never done a show together. We kind of wanted to do a thing that was like a showcase for all of us and didn’t really have a hierarchy or a headliner. We just wanted to do it and it was extremely successful and all of the bands loved it and over the course of the next year, we got to know more groups. We got to know Weekend Run Club and Violet Crime better and we keep expanding and try to keep building a sense of community. 

DS: Yeah, you can’t just play with the same groups all of the time too, as much as we want to. So, that way when you do it, it is an event.

CS: This is the second show that the bands have kind of put together themselves, of just local bands, and it’s the second time in a row that we’ve put something on like this and it’s sold out. 

AT: That’s impressive! Do you have any other favorite local bands that you’re influenced by? 
RL: Ember Oceans.

CS: Yeah, the homies!

DS: I saw a band like a year ago—they’re called Old Sol, and they put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It was the downstairs of SubT and this guy’s lyrics were just incredible; I should probably reach out to them or something. Also, one of my favorite drummers in another band is a group called Tiny Kingdoms who just put out music as well, and he’s a phenomenal player. 

CS: I love everything that Beach Bunny has ever put out and they’re blowing up right now. They’re killing it and are just doing so much—they’re signed and everything. I remember that she [Lili Trifilio] opened for us at Space [in Evanston] years ago. She was by herself and I just remember watching her set and in every song that she had, the writing was just insane. I instantly had the song memorized because they were so catchy and the writing was unbelievably poignant. Yeah, I’ve tried to write like her ever since and I can’t do it—she’s amazing. 

AT: What about influences in general? I believe you all have been compared to The 1975 amongst others...I’m definitely missing some but The 1975 is my favorite band so that one stuck out to me. 

RL: I feel like we’re sort of all over the place. If you ask each of us, we would cite a million different things. But if you ask someone who listens to us, it depends on the age of the person you ask. If you ask people around our age [20s], you get a lot of people saying a lot of The 1975, Walk the Moon, Coin, and Bad Suns. And if you ask older adults, you get The Cure, Talking Heads, Simple Minds—a bunch of that 80s kind of stuff. I think we, personally, cite all of that pretty much. 

AT: Aside from outside comparisons what would your own influences be? 
CS: My influences are all over the place—I love Green Day. They have a huge influence on me, Billie Joe specifically. The 1975 also—the way that they make just messes of albums work. “I Like It When You Sleep [for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It]” is a fucking mess but it’s beautiful and it works perfectly. Somehow, they just make it work and I think that that level of artistic experimentation and that level of not caring can be summed up in something I read somewhere that said, “It takes a lot of care to make something sound or look carefree.” I feel like they do that with every album. If you look at it from a bass perspective its like, oh, they just didn’t give a shit and tried a bunch of different things but they care so much that it makes it look that way. So, I think their level of experimentation and how many genres they bend is just so inspiring. 

RL: So much thought goes into everything—not even just the music, but the images and the videos and the stage show. I’ve always been extremely impressed and influenced by every aspect of what they do. It’s super cool. 

AT: I could talk about them for hours, so I’m going to hold back. Are there any bands that any of you grew up on that you found to shape your experience as musician today?

DS: I guess my first stuff was like classic rock, then as I got older, I went heavier and heavier. So, my parents got me a Nirvana CD when I was in the 5th grade. From there, I walked into a Hot Topic and saw an Iron Maiden t-shirt and was like, “This is my life now.” I was really into a lot of heavier music for a while, until the first time in high school when I heard “What You Know” by Two Door Cinema Club and it instantly altered my perspective on things. I didn’t know a guitar could be played like that. Right now, I’m very interested in finding bands from the 80’s that I wasn’t necessarily exposed to. I feel like a lot of the production from some of those 80’s pop records, like what a snare drum can sound like, is what's really influencing me and how I’m at least trying to tune my drums, even just for the groups I play with—this one especially. 

JP: I grew up hearing a lot of MoTown. So, a lot of Smokey Robinson, Temptations, Marvin Gaye. Those are still huge influences of mine but some that kind of really changed me and kind of got me to seek out my own music was hearing London Calling by The Clash. I don’t listen to them as much as I used to but they’re still seminal massive influence for me. For now and for the past few years, I’d say that for songwriting and lyrics and melody, I think Björk and Jamila Woods would probably be two people who I think about a lot, in terms of how to articulate expression for Björk and for how to put that idea of ways to place a story into a song and have it be personal, with someone like Jamila Woods. 

RL: My favorite band growing up is The Who. Pete Townsend was a major influence on my guitar playing all throughout the early stages of being a guitarist, which I think is now sort of weird because I think a lot of that has stuck with me, even though a lot of the stuff we’re playing doesn’t really call for that style of guitar playing. Now, a lot of my influences are like, Adam Hann from The 1975 or Eli [Maiman] from Walk the Moon, who have a lot more of a tight, clean, and very precise style of playing. So, I’ve definitely noticed that the way my own guitar playing is sort of this weird hybrid between the two, which has been sort of interesting because I’ve been trying to navigate how to use that in terms of what we’re writing. 

AT: On March 27th, you all are playing a show on International Transgender Day of Visibility as a benefit for The Trevor Project, which I think is really special and incredibly important. So, would any of you like to talk about what that means to you or why you find it critical to share that kind of safe space as well as supporting organizations such as The Trevor Project? 

JP: It’s something that’s very deeply personal to me in supporting organizations that will fight for transgender and queer liberation like The Trevor Project, and more locally in Chicago, with Brave Space Alliance, which is an organization that I love dearly as well. It’s so important to have this and to make spaces because for a lot of people, especially for transgender and gender nonconforming youth, things are better than they used to be, but not for everyone in the slightest. When you look at murder statistics of black transgender women and such, it’s not across the board that rising water is raising all ships. So, it’s important to support these organizations that have a committment to queer people of color and people of color with diabilities, etc. It’s extremely important and I’m very glad that we will be doing that. 

AT: Beautifully said. 

CS: I was really upset when I found out that I couldn’t play the show because I have another commitment that night. It’s something that I am really passionate as well, being a musical theatre actor, because I’ve been around queer youth and black queer youth my entire life, and it’s a really beautiful thing that they do. It’s a really great show and I’m really happy that we’re doing it—it’s wonderful. 

RL: There are few shows that I’ve wanted to say yes to as fast. 

CS: Oh, yeah. The second we got that email, I was like, “We have to do that!” 

AT: Was it The Trevor Project that reached out to you or how did it come about? 

DS: I don’t know if they have much to do with it other than we’re just giving the profits to them. Out of Context Productions is the one putting it together.

RL: Yeah, they do a monthly benefit show. 

DS: Apparently, all of last year, Weekend Run Club, who we’re playing with tonight for their album release show, had a donation box at every show for the organization [The Trevor Project] and were able to raise a significant amount of money just by having something on the table. But, I really looking forward to the show! We haven’t played with any of the bands on the lineup before and I wouldn’t be exposed to this organization or know anything about it really without music. Music has absolutely shown me a lot of different things. 

AT: It’s incredible that you all are supporting something like this! For some closing remarks, would any of you like to talk a little bit about the newest single “Disaster and Delight”? Is it setting the tone for future music?

CS: Actually, not really.

AT: Is there anything new in the works though?

RL: We have a new EP coming out in spring. We’re playing the whole thing tonight. It’s kind of all over the place but there’s definitely a sense of cohesion to it. It’s [Disaster and Delight] probably the most pop-sounding piece on the EP but that’s not to say that the rest of the EP isn’t pop-sounding, it just is in a different way. I feel like it covers a lot of ground and is a nice showcase of our various influences and the different things that we like and different ways that we’ve been exploring or conveying our sound and what we want to do. 

DS: I think “Disaster and Delight” serves as a good transition from our first EP to our second. It was also initially recorded during those first EP sessions. So, it is still very much from that era, but how we produced it and did additional recording on it makes it, what I think, to be a good transition piece. 

RL: I think the whole new EP will still feel like August Hotel but it’s different, and I think you’ll hear it as a step forward. It feels more mature. It also feels good to be putting new stuff out because it’s been a minute. 

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A Chat With: Axel Flóvent

Axel Flóvent was one of my favorite sets and best discoveries of the annual Iceland Airwaves Festival in 2019. The Icelandic singer-songwriter instantly won me over with his mesmerizing melodies and his knack for painting a picture through his lyrics on his songs like “Forest Fires” and “Your Ghost.” Recently, Flóvent embarked on his first proper U.S tour in support of Radical Face, and he took some time to chat before his set at Thalia Hall in Chicago. Tune in below for more on Flóvent’s take on the Icelandic music scene, how he overcomes creative challenges, and the themes of his upcoming debut album.

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What do you remember as your first musical memory? 

I feel for me it was a few moments of evolution, how my love evolved for music. The first memory was probably learning to play power chords. My uncle taught me to play power chords and I learned two AC/DC songs and I felt some kind of freedom from learning them because then I could try to write on my own. Cause it’s so easy the way he taught me. The way he taught me was that you could write on your own and do it anywhere, and it works.

So this tour is your first time in North America, right?

Yeah it’s the first time touring properly here.

What have been some highlights from the first leg of the tour, or something you’re looking forward to?

I’ve always wanted to play in New York! I was supposed to do a little east coast tour back in 2016 cause I did SXSW. I didn’t get my visa in time so we had to cancel the shows then, and since then I’ve been wanting to play in New York and do these east coast dates we had to cancel. That was the thing I was mostly excited about, making up the gigs I was supposed to do. Seattle was amazing also. The most amazing memories I had so far were playing in Seattle because they had a lot of connection to Iceland. A lot of them had gone to Iceland for Iceland Airwaves last year. It’s a really cool festival and it’s so nice getting people who are already connected to the music. I don’t know what to expect at all supporting for Radical Face and getting new crowds but in each city there’s always a few people coming from knowing Iceland Airwaves and Icelandic music. 

I actually went to Iceland for the first time last year and saw you at Iceland Airwaves myself. I loved the city and the festival, so as someone who lives there, what are a few spots you’d recommend for catching new music or just any sort of hidden gems for music fans who are maybe attending the fest for the first time?

I feel Iceland is so unpredictable when it comes to music. For me there’s no venue that always has something going on. What’s big in Iceland is like release concerts and people get so hyped up for it, and people get so hyped for these up and coming artists. I haven’t been connected to the Icelandic music scene for such a long time, so it’d be hard for me to recommend something. But definitely Iceland Airwaves is probably the best time to go to Iceland because every artist in Iceland tries to go on that festival and play. That’s the biggest thing for me. I haven’t played in Iceland since Airwaves.

So before you settled back in Iceland, you moved to Amsterdam when you were younger. Do you think that nomadic lifestyle has impacted your songwriting?

Definitely. I think I moved to Netherlands because I was signed to a label there. I moved there to be closer to them to be able to work with them. It didn’t work the way that I thought it would. I moved there and ended up being alone in my apartment writing a lot and just kind of reflecting on my dream of going into the city. I wrote “City Dreams” out of this idea of trying to make myself believe that I’m the place I wanted to be in and I made it. I’d gotten out of Iceland only to discover that being there two years out of Iceland, looking at Iceland like “I really need to move back.” Because everything I want to be close to is there actually and not out there. I really don’t have anyone or any roots [In Amsterdam]. So in darker times it’s hards to go by without any roots or anything really. That’s kind of like my album that I’m releasing in the end of the year. I wrote about this experience and this journey. 

Do you think you’re more creative in Iceland, or do you think that struggle drove you to write these songs? Do the dark times tend to turn into art?

Yeah I feel like as a songwriter you crave for things to write about that have a stronger meaning in a way. I think a problem a lot of songwriters have, especially when they go professional, they kind of start to not have anything that they have to do other than music. Now they’re at this place where they’re more comfortable and don’t need to go to a 9-5 job. When you’re at this comfortable state of mind….I feel like that was the biggest drive I had. When I was a teenager and I had to work jobs I didn’t like. I was so motivated to get out of it, that I got out of it quickly, but now I feel so privileged so it’s really hard to get in touch with your struggles. 

Like I can’t be too happy, I need to write songs!

That’s really the feeling! And I feel like a lot of artists have this problem because there’s so many more DIY, doing it ourselves and we’re working to get an income. Then when we get closer to do it professionally, it’s like what do we really write about? A lot of songwriters in my position just have a repetitive feeling of writing love songs but not really meaning anything.

That’s really interesting! It’s almost like a catch 22, like you want to be successful enough but not too comfortable.

You want to be in touch with real life struggles because otherwise you can’t write things that are relatable. I feel like that’s the thing. You don’t want to be in a position where you’re like I need to struggle, but you kind of do that in some ways because of that. 

Speaking of new music, can you talk about the creative process behind “Driving Hours”?

I wrote it right before I moved to Amsterdam. So in my apartment in Reykjavík. I had just ended a past relationship and I was kind of looking back at that and kind of talking to myself. I was in my mind, it’s quite different sonically than a lot of stuff I’ve released, so in my mind I was creating a new project. I was like I’m going to call this project Driving Hours, and it’s going to be a side project. I had to do this in my mind to allow myself to go in this direction sonically because I’m always so stuck with this mindset of having an acoustic guitar or organic piano to be able to release stuff under my own name. So I needed to do that and it was just flowing in a more straight up pop feely kind of lyrics. So I was trying to break myself out of the usual box with this song, so I wrote this a few years ago. I recorded it with my past label and then we broke up because of this song. They weren’t happy with where I was taking it and where I wanted to take it, so we realized it wasn’t working out. I didn’t touch the song for a long time. Then I signed to Nettwerk earlier last year, they were like you have to put this song on the record. I wasn’t sure about it because I wanted to go back to my roots and I felt like Driving Hours wasn’t really speaking to me in the same way my new music was. I found a way to record it and get it sonically more in touch.

Yeah that’s really interesting you had to separate it as a new project. I did notice it had a different kind of swagger to it. So then as far as “Driving Hours,” it’s the first single off a new EP. How does it fit in with the rest of the four songs?

The EP has two songs that are not going to be on the record, but “Tourist” and “Driving Hours” are going to be on the record. These two songs, one of them is a song I wrote years ago in like 2013. I never knew where to place it, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to put it on the record, so I wanted to put it on the EP before the record. I really love the song [“Sea Creatures”] and I’m performing it on the tour, and it’s always fun to tell the story of how I wrote it. 

You’ve mentioned some of your influences are Bon Iver and Bombay Bicycle Club. What do you consider to be non-musical influences for you?

I’m always kind of touched by glimpses of….It’s so hard to talk about it specifically because I can be watching an interview with another artist or just a movie. I watched Little Women in cinemas the other day and I got filled up with inspiration of writing cinematic music just by watching that. I think it’s just moments. It’s so connected to the moment as well so I feel it’s so hard for me to be like “Oh I love this artist and this artist.” The older I get the more and more I feel disconnected to specific things and I’m more inspired by moments here and there. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I love painting and drawing myself and just throwing stuff on paper. It’s everywhere kind of. 

So looking ahead with 2020, you have the album coming out. How would you briefly tease the album to get people excited about it?

It’s definitely inspired by isolation and feeling isolated from the rest of the world. Also just this feeling of loneliness and isolation is the theme of the record. Not only in a negative way. Also in a pure way, like love yourself. 

Anything else this year that you’re looking forward to?

We’re currently building up a lot of things. We’re looking forward to post release of the album and the next few months will be planning up to the release. 

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Photos from Axel Flóvent at Thalia Hall

Keep up with Axel on Twitter // Instagram // Facebook

Self-Reflecting With Harvey Fox

In any circumstances, but especially within the creative industry, it’s often too easy to ignore the signs of your own body and mind telling you that you need a break; You’re conditioned to keep going, to continue pushing out content and keep performing. There was a point in time when Colin Fox of Chicago band Harvey Fox came face to face with this exact struggle, and he ultimately decided to trust his intuition and be honest with those around him about taking some time off from his passion project. “I realized that I just wasn’t enjoying anything about the band. I wasn’t enjoying anything about making music or performing or going out and talking to people. It was all like a chore for me,” Fox recalls, telling me about about his change of heart and battle with social anxiety over a cup of coffee last month. The epiphany occurred right after the band played a packed Lincoln Hall show last year, and it led Fox to post on social media about his current struggles with certain aspects of being a musician. “I just made a post about this and was like I’m mentally not in a good space, I’m not having a good time, and I need a break from this to reassess and find a way that I can make a more sustainable life. You have to be careful how much energy you invest and you have to be mindful of your state and when you’re working on something that hard.”

As it turns out, Fox says his break from the band allowed for him to approach their sophomore effort with a refreshed outlook and clean slate, but he does also admit that the whole process had its ups and downs. “The album gets a little meta… There’s a lot of songs about the struggles that [I’m experiencing] and then I’m struggling to finish the record. So it’s real cyclical,” he says. Most importantly though, the second album from Harvey Fox, called Lullabies for the Restless, signifies growth and introspection for the band, and Fox’s ability to call out his own struggles in a self-reflecting manner is maybe one of the biggest changes between this record and the band’s debut.

Photo By Edgar J. Lomeli

Harvey Fox’s current-day, four-man lineup consists of friends that Fox made as far back as middle school— 14 years ago. The first being the band’s keyboard and synth player, Drake Morey. “We met in middle school. I transferred to a new school. It was a private Christian school and I was not so into it. Drake was into Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and he was one of my first friends at the new school. I went over to his house and he just had like hundreds of recordings of electronic music that he made,” Fox recalls. In a way, Morey served as Fox’s musical guru, introducing him to classic rock music and the recording arts. After dabbling in making music with Morey, Fox eventually met bassist Tom Garvey at a White Elephant party, where Garvey received Fox’s gift of a monkey carved out of a coconut. “Then I found out that he liked Radiohead and we’ve been friends ever since,” Fox added. Eventually, Fox also connected with drummer Dario Velazquez in high school when they both joined the lacrosse team. “ I saw him play drums in the school band and he was amazing,” Fox says. “We started playing garage rock in Dario’s garage ten years ago. Just Tom, Dario and I. Then it grew larger, Drake joined. We had a ten piece band in high school...we were just trying to be Arcade Fire. We wanted to make the kind of music that inspired us to make music in the first place.”

The long-term friendship between all four band members meant they definitely had a similar goal in mind and connected through their influences, but Fox says, “When I listen back to the [first] record today, it sounds like two different records, there’s side A and side B. Side A is definitely more of the reckless side, like garage party music stuff we were doing before. Whereas the second half is much more self reflective and contemplative side. I think when you work on something long enough you just have to take a serious look at yourself. It seemed like a lot of that first record was done as a joke. They’re silly songs, joking songs.”

Nowadays, in addition to the more direct, cohesive theme of introspection Fox wanted their sophomore album to have, he also approached some of the songwriting with very specific intentions. For example, the lead single “Pictures of Herself” stemmed from one of Fox’s personal relationships, as well as his self-proclaimed love/hate relationship with Lana Del Rey. When he started to work on the debut single for Lullabies for the Restless, Fox said he had just listened to a Lana Del Rey B-side called “Never Let Me Know.” “I kind of dig her, but also it’s hard not to scoff at everything she does. That song ‘Never Let Me Go,’ I just felt like so irritated by it, so the first line of [‘Pictures of Herself’] is ‘She never says don’t let me go because she thinks I won’t.’ The idea of this was to make like an antithesis of a Lana Del Rey song. It was me responding to a Lana Del Rey Tumblr singer.” Fox says after the initial idea fell into place, the song took a very long time to piece together, mostly because it involved a storyline about current events in his life— sometimes events that hadn’t fully played out yet. “I wrote the first verse and then I didn’t know what to do, then I wrote the second verse, then once I had those two pieces I was like how do I merge these together? Part of this album is it’s written in the moment… it’s all very in the moment. A lot of these songs are hard to finish because I don’t know the end of the story. I’m living this story.” For the second part of the single, Fox says he was scrolling through Facebook and saw a picture of his ex-girlfriend. "I saw a picture of her and that feeling of seeing somebody moved on with their life, while you’re just kind of stuck in your own anxiety and depression, that’s the feeling that I was capturing. With this song it’s like the first verse is attacking and antagonizing, then the second verse turns the mirror back on myself. Like you’re judging someone for taking pictures of themselves while you’re looking at the pictures and being annoyed and angry. It’s like you obviously have some of your own ego and headspace that you need to work on.” As for the final verse of the song, Fox leaves that one open-ended, saying that he prefers to keep a little bit to the imagination and allow listeners to have their own interpretations.

Along with a more thorough approach to the songwriting for this record, the band also stepped up their game with their recording process. “We met with a couple of different producers and there was one guy Caleb Harris, he runs SonWaves Studio out of his basement. I was at a party and I had heard one of the songs that he produced. I was like wow this sounds amazing, and I was telling him I wanted to make a lo-fi garage album. He was like ‘Well, go do it yourself then. If you want to make a lo-fi album, you’re not gonna do it with me. If you want to make something sound good, then record it with me.’ So he just like instantly started fighting with me,” Fox says, adding “That’s how I like to work with people. I like to butt heads!” Working with a seasoned producer with a strong vision not only allowed the band to challenge themselves as artists, but it also allowed for the band to take their time and work at a natural pace. In order to even afford recording in the studio, the band had to space out their sessions, and that lent to a more natural, fleshed out recording process that lasted for more than a year. “We recorded everything live initially with [Harris] in the basement studio, then did overdubs with him,” Fox says. “Then Drake and I recorded a lot of the synths and guitars and everything outside of the studio.” As a day job, Fox happens to work in the recording studio inside Hanover Park Library, which turned out to be very handy when recording the finishing touches on their own. “I recorded a bunch of cello and flute with one of the guys from our high school band. I also recorded our vocals in the library because there’s a soundproof booth.I work in the library all week and then on my days off I would come into the library and record.” Other finishing touches include sounds of trains, whispers, and random synth sounds Morey recorded on his phone. “We just combined that in a bunch of ways to make it sound cohesive. It was a very slow, organic process which I was very happy with,” Fox says.

Overall, Fox says that his hiatus and the steady pace of this record completely made the project more enjoyable, and produced something that he can be proud of. “After that [Lincoln Hall] show, I took a four month break from playing music. I didn’t even touch a guitar, and when I came back to it, I had a whole new life. I was able to finish the record, I was able to finish the title track of the album, the very last track on the record. It sort of serves as an epilogue to everything, and I had enough gear and experience from working as an audio engineer at that point to be able to not have to go to the studio, but to record it myself. The direction of the record after that time took a much more organic feel, and I think that if I would have stuck to my previous headspace and mindset, not only would I have totally burnt out, it would have been a much more angry and rigid record. As opposed to blossoming into this more much more positive and organic thing.”

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The record Lullabies for the Restless will be released in October via Midwest Action, along with a record release show at Sleeping Village on Sunday, October 20th. Get your tickets here and keep up with Harvey Fox on Facebook // Twitter // Instagram

Baring it All With Burr Oak: A Premiere of the New Single "Rosemary"

Sometimes your favorite songs have to grow on you, but the best songs are those that hook you during the first few seconds and after luring you in, the melody gets lodged in your head for hours after the song has ended. The debut single from Burr Oak, “Southsider,” had that effect on me the first time I listened— as soon as I heard Savanna Dickhut’s haunting, double-layered vocals, I knew this project was going to be something special.

I was first introduced to Savanna as one of the lead vocalists and songwriters of the local folk-rock group Elk Walking back in early 2018, and while that group has always given her a platform to shine, Burr Oak is an outlet that allows for listeners to absorb Savanna’s unapologetically honest musings in a way that fully belongs to her. Prior to forming Elk Walking with Julian Daniell, Savanna dabbled in collaborative writing with her band called Tigers and Tantrums during her freshman year of Columbia College, but long before that, she was writing songs just for herself. “I think the first song I wrote was probably before I even learned how to play guitar. I remember writing songs—this is so embarrassing, but I would write songs on the toilet when I was 7 or 8. They weren’t even really songs, but I would just sing on the toilet,” Savanna recalls.

Burr Oak photographed by Alexa Viscius

When she was 11 years old, Savanna started playing drums, but after realizing she needed a way to write songs on an instrument, she asked for a guitar for her 8th grade graduation present. “So I was 14 and I just went on this streak of writing. I remember coming home from high school my freshman year and of course at the time I’m obsessed with Taylor Swift. Cause I’m 14 you know? I’m a 14 year old girl who just learned how to write and I remember hearing that one song on the radio— ‘Teardrops on My Guitar.’ It sounds cheesy but I was inspired by her and so I started writing songs and I would come home from high school every day and write a song,” Savanna says, adding that back then she was writing purely for the joy of it and to express herself in a no-pressure situation.

Essentially, these Burr Oak singles came about in the same way; They were inspired by feelings that Savanna had to get out for her own peace of mind, except this time she decided to share them with the world. “I started writing a lot of songs that weren’t working for Elk Walking,” she says, adding that they just weren’t the vibe of the band. “I was going through a breakup and some personal stuff, and I started writing these really sad songs. And was just listening to a lot of music that was in the sleep rock genre. When I wrote ‘Southsider,’ I knew that it just wasn’t gonna work [for Elk Walking]. So I either have this for myself and do nothing with it, or I start this new project.” Coincidentally the timing was right for Savanna to take on another project, and she also had the catalog to back it up. “It wasn’t like I just wrote that one song either...I had been writing songs for a while. I have probably an album’s worth of songs that I could put out that wouldn’t work for Elk Walking.” Ultimately, it was specifically “Southsider” that Savanna wrote that she felt like she needed to get out there, and the best way to share it would be starting her own side project. “I hit a wall creatively. I was going through depression with my breakup and I just needed to get this out there. It was selfish almost, it was for me, but also I do want to get it out there for people to listen to. I just didn’t want it to be another one of those songs that I wrote and it’s like ‘never gonna see the light of day.’ So that was really the main motivation for it,” Savanna added.

During her first experience of writing songs as a teenager, Savanna took influence from popstars like Taylor Swift, but nowadays she pulls inspiration from a more laid-back place. In addition to Julia Jacklin, Faye Webster and Weyes Blood, Savanna says she really connected to the latest album from Hand Habits, the project of Meg Duffy. “I was really inspired by Hand Habits. When their record came out, I was very inspired by that and I loved that doubling of their voice and the just kind of dreamy sound. Everything about it was just like I love this so much! So that inspired me to double my voice in pretty much all of those two tracks [“Southsider” and “Rosemary”]. I don’t know if I’m gonna keep doing that when I eventually record an EP and album, but it was something I experimented with because I just wanna have this kind of bigger sound.”

Like the haunting double vocals used on “Southsider,” Savanna’s second single “Rosemary” (which we’re premiering below) has that same ethereal effect. Fittingly, since these songs both have a dreamy quality to them, part of the melody for the second single came to Savanna in a dream. “Sometimes I’ll write from my dreams, but I never get a full song. Sometimes I do hear melodies and even lines in my dreams. So I had that dream and I kind of based the story I was telling about this person who is very consuming in your life. Somebody that I met recently that kind of just sucked all of the emotion and sucked the life out of me in a way and is with another person, but is very all-consuming of me. Obviously I knew it would be wrong to ever try to get invested in that cause I don’t need to be a part of that,” Savanna says about writing “Rosemary.” She chose to release this song and “Southsider” first because they’re the two newest of songs she’s written for Burr Oak, and songs that she currently connects with the most.

Going along with the theme of new beginnings, the live ensemble for Burr Oak is filled with some fresh faces for Savanna. Her friend Emily McDermott plays bass along with Jeff Sullivan from Elk Walking on lead guitar and Tony Mest on drums, who Savanna hadn’t worked with in the past. “It was perfect timing cause I was looking for a drummer to try to really get Burr Oak off the ground, and I wanted someone who I hadn’t really worked with before,” she says about Tony. You can catch the full band in action at our next showcase this week at The Hideout.

As far as what’s next for Burr Oak, the possibilities are endless. While the first two singles were very stripped back and very minimal (Savanna didn’t track to a metronome in order to keep the live feel), Burr Oak’s sound hasn’t been defined just yet. Talking about the recording process for “Southsider” and “Rosemary,” Savanna says, “I really just wanted it to be about my voice and the story I was telling. And not overproduced and not add too much. That’s not to say that my sound isn’t gonna develop, but at least for this debut, I wanted it to be pretty simple. I think that comes off that it’s gonna sound pretty much on the record as it does live.” Eventually, Savanna hopes to put out an EP within the year and continue to work with new people and branch out of her comfort zone. “I can’t say where or if it’s gonna be an album, but I will definitely be recording more in the next few months. I have all these songs and I really wanna get them out. But I also don’t want to overwhelm people with so much at once. People are digesting their music differently now.”

For now, dive into Burr Oak’s second single “Rosemary,” and get your tickets to the August 15th Hideout showcase here.

Keep up with Burr Oak on Instagram and Facebook

Crying with Katharine Seggerman: A Chat with Lunch Duchess

I sat down with Katharine Seggerman of Lunch Duchess to talk about her forthcoming album, Crying For Fun, out August 16th on Heavy Meadow Records. We talk about Britney Spears, relationships, and of course, our feelings.

Photo by Chloe Krenz. Lunch Duchess is:

Katharine Seggerman (she/her) - drums, vocals

Nicky Steves (he/them) - synths

Sam Frederick (they/them) - guitar

Matthew Sandstedt (he/him) - bass

So how did you decide to start singing and drumming?

People kept telling me to do it for years and I was always resentful of that because it’s kind of hard. And I think there’s some weird gender aspects of me wanting to prove that I’m a good musician and not just a singer. And then I bought myself a headset microphone and that was a game changer, and it still took years to get competent at it.

I feel like the natural progression of “what can I do in addition to singing?” is playing guitar. So drums is different, were you already interested in it?

That was my starting point actually. I started drums when I was 12 and played in a band with my friends in middle school, and played in jazz band in middle school. I did a teen program kind of similar to She Rock, and then my own bands in high school and college. It wasn’t until I was in this band, BOYF, now defunct (RIP). That was a hilarious band and I played drums in that and then started singing on the headset mic. 

I just really wanna see you with an early 2000s Britney Spears-esque headset mic. That’s my dream Lunch Duchess set.

You’re giving me such a good idea, I don’t know what to wear for the release yet. Maybe like the red latex one she wore in “Oops I Did It Again.” Ponytail and hair extensions. 

You describe your voice as “Disney-esque.” What’s your vocal background? Are you a trained singer?

My only musical training is percussion so I can read percussive music, but never got beyond middle school choir for vocals. Although I did sit down with Sam’s mom, who’s actually a well known singer in the Twin Cities and got some tips from her, because I’ve been trying to learn a little bit on my own as an adult. 

In the press kit you sent me, a lot of the sentences end with “this may sound like a lot- it is.” Which I think is an interesting choice of words, can you define “a lot”?

I think of the songs as being very distilled, and not even distilled to simplicity but really intense elements taken from each component of the song. Like the emotionality, the lyrics, the instrumentation. There’s not really a lot of fluff. I think the intensity of the songs themselves and the commitment to going all out when I easily could’ve alluded to an idea. Like the part when everybody in the band is singing “lala lala lalala,” it’s so unnecessary... it’s a lot. I think a lot of bands might have a similar idea, but with less intensity. 

Ok, well obviously I follow Lunch Duchess on Twitter, and I saw one of your tweets where someone was very confused by you defining your band as grunge pop. But then in your press kit you’ve articulated the sound of each song to a tee. So do people not “get” your sound, is that a problem you come across?

Photo by Chloe Krenz

I think that particular tweet was about a really interesting conversation I had with someone who doesn’t really listen to music. I mean the way he was talking about it like “I use hip hop at the gym.” Which was really eye opening because I’m surrounded by people who live and breathe music.

The album is very cohesive but the songs shift from each other. Like “Chicago” is more rock in feel than most of the other songs. How does that come together? 

That’s a good question. I think it goes back to the way that I write each song. So for some songs- well they all start with vocal melody. Probably something is bothering me and a melody pops into my head. And then I will find stuff to go under that using either a banjo or a piano, sometimes a bass. And then flesh it out as best I can for the structure itself. And after that I bring in bandmates. I think it’ll change based on who kind of takes the lead instrumentally, if it’s gonna be more guitar driven or more synth driven. A mood is really important to me, so using the instruments to convey a certain mood of like doom, or excitement, anxiety… I think a lot of it has to do with the developmental process, writing with the band once the structure is done, and what the mood of the song needs to be. 

It’s interesting that you drive things based on how it comes together rather than creating a formula for what you want the album to be and then bringing people in.

And even having different people be involved on the album in different parts. Like the song “Better” originally was played with a different guitarist. And some of these songs were played by Matt on guitar who now plays bass, some of them were played with Ranelle on bass, who now plays synths. It’s fluid.

I actually did want to walk about “Better.” It has this playful, bouncy sound. But there’s that line “just kidding, that wasn’t me but only cause society is extremely unforgiving of female sexuality.” It has me wondering how much of that song we should truly read as a joke?

I think they’re serious issues, but I’m trying not to burden myself by taking it so seriously and being so angry about it, even though at different times I am definitely super angry about some of that stuff. On one hand “Body” I’m talking about “I get naked anytime I like” and that line kind of bothers me because it sounds like I’m talking about having sex but I literally just mean I like being naked. I’ll probably spend some time in a nudist colony at some point, I don’t know. I don’t understand societal norms around that and why bodies have to be sexualized, that really pisses me off. And that goes into the territory of possession too and reproductive justice, so that’s stuff that I’m angry about. And not prioritizing partners’ sexual needs, especially if the partner is a straight cis guy, they could be doing a little better. Which is why the song is called “Better.”

That’s funny because I have a question about “Body.” I’m very much a believer that having a body is weird and that I’d be ok being sentient haze.

I wish. What are you, an Aquarius or something? 

I’m actually a Capricorn! But because of your points on autonomy it becomes arguably the only political track on the album. Because you said you try not to let it burden you, was that a moment where you wanted to touch on something more specifically?

In writing that song I had started out wanting to do something really silly and was just playing around. The first two verses are about really inconsequential things like allergies and being sensitive to drugs. And then I was asking myself “why am I even writing about bodies if it’s just a joke?” and realized I could say something I actually do care a lot about in it. Which is not usually how a song works for me. Maybe I’m adding little bits here and there but it’s not “let me bring in an entire issue that’s important to me.” So kind of explaining to myself why I wanted to write about that in the first place. And the other ones definitely aren’t political, I think they mostly deal with boundaries and relationships. And sometimes that’s in a societally gendered way, kind of a stereotype of like women are supposed to save men and men are stereotyped as not being responsible for their behavior, not taking accountability, needing to be mothered. So I think some of the songs are push backs against that mentality.

Especially on “Lust/Love,” a lyric I really attached to is “don’t recall how to be alone, it’s making me angry that you do.” Thematically I did want to ask you about the concept of boundaries throughout the album because it does undercut most of the songs. This idea of what am I on my own? What am I with another person? How do I not overextend?

That’s one of the only songs on the album that’s about an entirely different relationship. I don’t want to get too specific and make the subject feel bad. But a lot of the songs on the album are about a specific relationship and a specific type of relationship that was pretty co-dependent. And trying to figure it out, usually from a self-empowering kind of way, during those rare moments in a co-dependent relationship where you question what you’re doing. But this relationship [portrayed in "Lust/Love"] was so far from that and purely physical. And then kind of acknowledging that I don’t know how it feels to be in a relationship where we’re so much more independent- to the point of excluding emotions. And just really having my thinking changed by someone who was a lot more detached, which at the time was really healthy for me. It was just a reset.

Going off that, Crying For Fun definitely has some difficulties defining love.

Yeah, especially going back to that one very co-dependent relationship and just feeling moments of total doubt in myself. Like is this love? Do I know how to love? Is this how I want to be loved? And am I loving this person the way that they deserve? So I think there is a lot of anxiety about that on the album. And then other moments that are kind of taking a break from that, like “Chicago” is a new crush, and “Lust/Love” is a whole different thing. So kind of exploring different avenues and trying to answer those very basic questions about love and capacity to love. 

I really like the word “capacity” in this context.

I guess, damnit I thought I had grown, but a song on the previous EP is called “How You Love” and towards the end of the song it keeps repeating “is that how you love?” and “did I love well?” So I guess I’m still asking that question in a way, but starting to use more outside sources for getting feedback than relying just on myself. Your own internalized narratives can get so twisted if you keep telling yourself the same thing over and over again. 

So is it safe to assume that you’re someone who’s comfortable being seen as openly emotional?

Yes, definitely! And even then I still am a little nervous about it. There is a part of me that really enjoys confrontation because I think it’s healthy for people to be stating their needs instead of the Minnesotan tendency to gloss over it and not talk about it. So sometimes I still am scared to bring things up. But it’s a lot scarier to me to not be feeling emotions at all. And I think I was feeling that way for a long time when I was a lot more depressed and medicated, and coming out of that I think I’m really grateful that I have the capacity to be really sad or be really upset or be really happy. So I kind of think Crying For Fun is a little bit about that, about getting back in touch with my emotions.

And it’s, in a way, easier to not feel.

But if you’re not feeling you’re not getting signals from life about where to go. You’re not gonna end up in a happy place when you’re finally ready to confront your emotions. And I keep using ‘you’ language but I know it’s not universal, it’s personalized.

Talking about Crying For Fun versus My Mom Says I Have a Rich Inner Life, we have “Cry II” and the single “Ride or Die” appears again. Is Crying For Fun an expansion of the EP or do you view it more as something totally different that has a track that’s been refurbished? 

I think the answer to that is more technical than anything else. I wondered should we re-release “Ride or Die” and I asked a friend of mine and he was like “well it’s probably gonna expose more people to it so it’s good to include it again” and it’s a good song, I still like it. But thematically, if it’s an expansion? I think so. I’m asking that question about love again and defiantly talking about crying, which is not something people are usually proud that they do. And there are other themes that still carry through too, I think about independence. Some of the stuff on “Unable/Unwilling,” I think that song is a lot about coming out of depression and people putting their assumptions on you about your motives for doing certain things. I think in that one a boyfriend assumes music is something I do as a hobby. But in fact it’s mostly emotional exorcism. That’s the reason why I write songs. So unfortunately when I’m doing really well and I’m happy, like I am right now, I don’t do a lot of writing. But I try to not worry about it. I don’t really understand the point of art that is not necessary to the maker. If I don’t feel the need to create then I’m not gonna make myself do it, I’m not gonna do like an inspiration exercise. Which maybe I’ll change my mind on that, but at the moment I’ll fill my time with something else. Like going to grad school.

Are you? Congratulations!

Thank you! I’m going to be a talk therapist. So doing some more emotions and dark secrets and analysis. So kind of fulfilling that need in a different place, I guess. 

It would be cool to find out your therapist is in a band. Though probably just for the patient, not for you.

I’m so nervous about that. Like “yeah she’s in a band and writes some really forthright lyrics about sex and I know way too much about her sex life now.” Yeah, I’m probably gonna have to change my name.

There’s something very subversive about Crying For Fun. There’s a sweetness in some of the instrumentals but the lyrics are darker; I think it’s part of what makes the album sound so distinct. How do you create that kind of juxtaposition?  

I think it’s maybe a mirror of how I’m thinking about some of these things, which truthfully it’s not the healthiest way to deal with things. But a lot of these songs have been in the bag for years, “Better” is a really old song for example. In kind of just stepping back and looking at this collection of songs and other things going on in my life I feel like the angst comes from thinking that I have to keep my dissatisfaction about things secret. So not being able to openly discuss when I’m dissatisfied, which is nobody’s fault, I think it’s more an existential problem. You only have one life to live and you have to be brave enough to do it. I think freedom of choice can be a really terrifying thing for people. Sometimes you wish someone else would make the choice for you. So you go with the flow and you stay in things that you don’t like but you sort of pretend that you do like them and then it ends up just making you resentful. And I think I’ve been feeling resentful about different situations just out of my own fear to do what I want to do. But if you don’t know what you want to do for a long time, you just end up kind of stuck in a loop. 

How does that lead into creating these very saturated songs?

I think that I’ve been really selective in what to put on the album. There are a lot of other songs out there but at some point it feels like it’s not clicking or it doesn’t need to be said. It feels redundant compared to something else in the catalogue. And then I’ll decide not to develop it any further. I feel a little bad about this, but I really don’t like performing songs that I don’t feel to be emotionally true anymore, which is probably frustrating for my bandmates. It’s like “oh yeah I just want you to learn this song” and then six months later it’s like, “no I don’t feel that way anymore.”

Are there any songs specifically that you’re not playing right now?

There used to be one, I was just listening to a demo of it on my way here because it popped into my head, it’s called “Friend/Lover/Fuck Me Over,” and it’s being just really frustrated with someone even outside a romantic relationship and feeling like they’re just not respecting you as a person no matter where you try to meet them. It has some really cutting, mean lyrics, some of my songs do. At the end it says “bad people they have a way of being bad friends” which is literally calling someone a bad person, that’s pretty mean. So sometimes I’ll shy away from songs that are overly attacking of someone without taking enough share of the responsibility.

You say it yourself that Crying For Fun is full of “earworms,” which is almost an understatement. I think it’s funny with the subject matter that you work with that it ends up being really catchy. How intentional is that?

The only songs that I end up developing are the ones that are banging around my head for a long time. That phrase and melody is just going through my head constantly until I think of some other parts to go along with it. So I’d say it’s pretty unintentional but I like the fact that a lot of them are darker subject matter and are catchy. I think everyone could take some time to reflect on their emotions and relationships and other stuff that maybe they wouldn’t hear about in a normal pop song. I feel like there is such a trend about that lately- pop songs about anxiety that you hear on Top 40 and you’re like “what? This is really dark stuff.” That Julia Michaels song that’s like “I got issues and we got issues.” Unexpected. 

A lyric that’s really imprinted on me is “I love you like I fight a war” on “Makes Me Love You More.” Could you tell me a little more about it? 

I think that song is coming to terms with a complicated romantic relationship, and I think right now our culture is quick to dub things abusive or toxic, but even in those relationships you’re getting something out of it or else you wouldn’t be in it. I’m sorry, I mean that in a nuanced way, obviously in an abusive relationship there’s not much you can do to defend a truly abusive person. But there is something lovable about every person and you can’t just pretend that you never loved the person, even if it was a kind of love that felt like going to war everyday. And that’s with yourself and with that person. With yourself just in terms of it’s not actually healthy for you but you make yourself do it or you’re trying to make yourself get out of it. I don’t think that fighting in a war is the ideal way to be in a relationship, but even in those relationships there is still something that you love about that person and that’s still a valid love. And definitely admitting guilt on that too. Like should you be in a relationship with someone? Maybe you’re doing some harm too or I was doing some harm in feeling like it was a war. It’s two sided. 

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Pre-order the digital album here and cassettes here and catch their album release party on August 31st at Mortimer’s Bar and Restaurant.

A Chat With: Together Pangea

LA-based band Together Pangea has been crafting catchy garage rock since 2009, delivering four full-length albums and a handful of EPs that each explore different sounds and offer a little something for everyone. Over their years together, the band has also become known for their infectiously energetic live presence—no Together Pangea show is ever quite complete without a mosh pit or some crowd surfing. In the past, Together Pangea has shared the stage with acts like Alkaline Trio, Ty Segall, and The Black Lips, just to name a few.

Most recently, the group just wrapped up a headlining West Coast tour run in celebration of their EP Dispassionate, and they are now gearing up to embark on the East Coast run, which kicks off here in Chicago. Ahead of the kick-off show at Lincoln Hall, I spoke with Danny Bengston of the band, discussing their recording process of the latest EPs, their music video for “Dispassionate,” and how they plan to spend their time in Chicago. Tune into our chat with Together Pangea below!

PHOTO BY DEREK PERLMAN

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Your new EP Dispassionate just came out about a month ago now, which was a quick follow up from the Non Stop Paranoia EP released last year. When working on the two EPs, which have been described as opposites of each other, did you already have that theme in mind and write them in tandem? Or was Dispassionate more of a reflection after the fact?

We went into the studio and we recorded nine songs, plus some acoustic songs that we put out before the EPs. So I guess in total we did about fourteen songs all at once. When we went in to do it, we weren’t sure what it was gonna end up being because we had enough songs technically to do a full length, if we wanted to. But it just sort of happened that once we got into it and started getting mixes back and seeing how things were shaping up, there were four songs that made sense together and five songs that made sense together. So that’s how that happened.

Totally, so they just ended up as two halves of a whole piece. 

Yeah, there was no intention going in to make two separate EPs that had separate vibes, we just had a group of songs that happened to have two distinct sounds so we split it up that way.

Nice, then the four songs on Dispassionate are definitely more laid-back compared to some earlier material and sort of have that 50’s, 60’s vibes. What were some factors that influenced that shift?

We made the decision specifically to sort of go ahead and put out songs that we felt really good about, not necessarily songs that were reflective of our previous catalog so much. I think with Non Stop Paranoia there’s definitely a little bit more recognizable aesthetic sounds that are in the vein of Badillac or some of the older stuff, but all in all I think it was more of a choice that we made this batch of songs that we felt really good about. I think that was it! Even if it sounded different than before, it’s still us. We felt they were solid songs.

Were there any influences you can pinpoint? Maybe other art forms, like films, or other music you were listening to around that time? 

I know that the song “Moonlight Lately” specifically I wrote that one, I was listening to a lot of 60’s girl groups like The Shangri-Las or The Crystals…The Ronnettes. I was listening to The Crystals a lot when I wrote that song, and I wanted to make a song that sounded like one of those old girl group classic songs. So that’s why that song sounds that way. We also had just never really done anything like that where we just sort of went for it that hard. Like chose a sort of genre or style and just went for it. It started out just guitar, drums, and bass and then we ended up having more time and resources. I was just like fuck it, we called Max Kuehn, he’s the drummer for Fidlar, and he came in and played. We had two drum kits in the studio and he and Erik played together. Our friend Killian from the band No Parents did a bunch of hand percussion. The percussion take is two drums and also a lot of hand percussion. I told Danny, the producer, what I was going for specifically and we just went for it. Somebody at our record label knew somebody who played saxophone, so the saxophone was on it and I was like I want to add some piano…some glockenspiel, you know. It just spiraled out of control.

Yeah, that sounds like a fun recording session with lots of guest appearances.

Yeah it was a lot of fun. It was the first time we’ve ever done anything like it, where we got two drum kits in the studio at once.

I also really liked the video for “Dispassionate,” the EP’s title track. And speaking of No Parents, I laughed at the part with their t-shirt in the video. So as far as this music video concept, did you all work together to come up with the idea, or did you work with a specific director who had this concept in mind?

For the music video that was our friend Derek Perlman, he’s a photographer based in Los Angeles. It was his idea and he’s actually a really close friend of mine, we hang out fairly often when I’m back home. I know that he had sort of dipped his feet in the idea of wanting to make more music videos, and he had started this music video for this friend, but it never came out for other reasons. We were just looking for someone to do a video, and we were like why don’t we see if Derek is interested in trying it? And he totally killed it.

Wow so this was his first official music video?

Yeah! It’s technically his second, but the first one wasn’t 100% finished and never came out.

Wow that’s still impressive though! Shifting gears to your live shows, I know you’re in the middle of a huge cross country tour at the moment. What have been some highlights of it so far, or some favorite places? Maybe some places you’re looking forward to hitting soon?

I’m still pretty excited that Chicago is the kick off of the east coast run. That’ll be great. This first half of the tour has been pretty amazing, like every show. There hasn’t been a bad show...LA is always good because it’s our hometown. Yesterday we played Sacramento, which was very fun, aside from it being no air conditioning and being extremely hot. Denver is an amazing place for us...another tour highlight. We’re definitely looking forward to Chicago, that’s the first one of the second leg.

So as far as Chicago, is there anything you guys have plans to do outside of the show? Anything on your Chicago list?

Well we toured with Twin Peaks a couple years ago and we’re still very good friends with those guys. I was talking to Cadien about hopefully going to swim in the lake. He was saying it might not be warm enough. We’re also on tour with another Chicago band, Dehd. I’m just excited cause we have a lot of friends out there like Twin Peaks, Dehd and Lala Lala. If it’s warm enough we’ll go swim in the lake!

Yeah I think that might work out now! It’s been like 80 degrees this week, although yesterday it hailed a bunch, but it was sunny about ten minutes later. So hopefully the lake plans will follow through.

Yeah I’ve always wanted to do that. 

Are there any new bands or any albums that have been on heavy rotation while you’re on tour at the moment?

The No Parents record, which isn’t out yet, that’ll be out in September. Been listening to that a bunch. Lala Lala...Dehd. There’s always a lot of really good Chicago stuff. The new White Reaper song is really good. 

Nice, lots of good stuff! Anything else you guys are looking forward to this year besides the tour and new EP? Anything else coming soon, like videos or potentially even more new material?

Probably! As of now we just have these tours to wrap up and then we go to Europe…and maybe some more touring throughout the year. We’ll probably get to recording at some point in the next year, I’d imagine. I have a feeling we’ll be hitting Chicago at least twice this year though.

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Together Pangea makes their Lincoln Hall debut on Thursday, July 11th. Get your tickets here.

Keep up with Together Pangea on Facebook // Twitter // Instagram

A Chat With: Zuli

As a songwriter and creator, Zuli has never shied away from exploring different genres and styles with his music. His multi-faceted debut album On Human Freakout Mountain gave listeners glimpses of rock, pop, psych and folk textures back in 2017. Now, Zuli has returned this year with his first bit of music since his debut record, giving fans another taste of something new. Released June 21st, Zuli’s latest single “ur mistaken” contains the same rock and pop undertones of his older material, but it also twists in sprinkles of soul and R&B.

Drawing influence from some of his favorite music released by other artists during the past two years, Zuli was able to tap into a different side of his creativity and refresh his sound without straying too far from his roots. While there’s still plenty more to come as far as new material goes, I recently caught up with Zuli the week that “ur mistaken” dropped to talk about his current artistic inspiration, the growth in his writing process, and what he hopes to deliver with his live performances.  Tune into our chat with Zuli below!

Photos by Kimberly Young Sun

What was your first musical memory?

There’s a lot! My mom is a singer, and when I was growing up she was always singing and playing gigs. I was always going with my dad. She’s a country singer. So that’s probably my first memory of music, just hearing her sing Dolly Parton and things like that. In terms of me being affected by any kind of music, I guess some of my earlier memories was I was a huge Stray Cats fan when I was a little kid. I really loved like Brian Setzer, I wanted to be Brian Setzer when I was a little kid. I also feel like when I heard “Tommy” by The Who for the first time I wanted to pick up a guitar and just start writing songs and doing my own thing. Those are the memories that come to mind firsthand. I grew up in a musical house though so it’s always been a big part of shaping who I am.

That’s awesome you have that connection with your family going way back! So now you have your new single out, which is your first release since 2017. How does it feel to have “ur mistaken” finally shared with the world?

It feels great, honestly. I was lucky enough...I don’t know if lucky is the right word, but I was testing out the song with some shows to see people’s reactions and people have been really positive about it. After it came out, the love and the output from people has been really inspiring. It’s just great to be back and have it out and I’m excited to keep the ball rolling. I’m glad people are feeling a new direction and this whole new chapter. 

Yeah it seems like a lot of good responses on social media so far! Lots of people were sharing on release day. Then as you mentioned, it definitely pulls in a new soulful sound and new approach compared to some of your older material. What was your process with “ur mistaken” and creating this song versus some of your earlier material?

I think that at its core, it shares some resemblances of the older material and that I still always try to do my best to write a song with the intention of one instrument and a vocal, and making it feel good at its core. Then once you put the production on top of it, you’ll only make the song better. I think that when this song came about, and when I was digging deeper and going in this new direction to express myself and create, it kind of just came from a place of a little bit of melancholy and feeling down about where I was in my relationship with everyone. It just kind of felt like a more longing type of approach. My voice didn’t feel the same. I just wasn’t expressing myself in the same kind of way. With On Human Freakout Mountain, as a record, it was my first experience recording and releasing a full length album. When I was finished with that I learned so much and I had all these new experiences that came along with it but also was tending to all of these experiences that led up to that point, and once I reflected on where I was going and where I’ve been, it just kind of felt like there’s certain aspects that I’m gonna take and I’m gonna expand upon and keep in my toolbox. But there’s this whole other side of me I feel like that hasn’t really seen the light yet. It wasn’t even an intentional thing but this new idea and new direction felt so right and like the best method for me to continue expressing myself.

Nice, it sounds like it’s an accumulation of everything you learned when approaching the new music. So between the time of your debut album coming out and now releasing this new single, what would you say is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about yourself, either personally or as a musician? Anything you tried to apply from those experiences you had?

I think as a musician and as an artist, my main focus and a big part of what I do is going with your intuition and feeling. I think feeling goes a lot deeper than thought. However, I do feel that was such a big crux for me in a lot of ways, just the music feeling right to me and how it kind of came out. I think when I was approaching this stuff, I was coming from more of an introspective space where I was really reflecting on everything, and I feel like right now with my creating, I’m trying to find a balance of keeping my heart and my brain in the song. And letting the thought process behind the song help shape not only the narrative, but the direction and some aspects of the aesthetic, but then also not forgetting that at the end of the day, my intuition of how the song feels and how I feel about the structure...Say I want to write a song about this, but then I’m working on a melody, a string of words comes out that not only resonates with me but feels good, I shouldn't deny that because my intention was different. I feel like that was my biggest difference or growing moment between the two, was just learning ok like, I can take this part of me but I also want to be more concise with what I’m saying.

Yeah that’s a great way to look at it and approach it. Like making sure you still have the heart and soul behind the song and not losing that, but still focusing on your intention. I’d say that’s a good way to work.

I think so! I mean I tried to do that.

I think it came across with this song. So kind of along those lines, what were some albums or maybe other art forms that you consumed during that past couple of years that may have influenced you with the new material?

I kind of narrowed it down in my head because I thought about this a little bit. There’s been a multitude, there wasn’t just one thing that I was like oh man, this is what I have to do now…But I have to say, On Human Freakout Mountain came out, and it was maybe a week to a month after and I had heard Control by SZA for the first time. And yes it has the R&B and the soul, and that kind of flavor to it, but I feel like the thing that resinated with me so much was how deep and personal and unapologetically herself [it was]. It felt so refreshing. And plenty of different singers talk about sex and love and all of these things that are so relevant and relatable to everyone, but something about her take on it and just the way her music made me feel, it was like wow, this is special. This is something that really really made me feel so good. I’m so grateful for all of my experiences and the opportunities I’ve been given, but it just kind of gave me this feeling like wow there’s so much more I could be doing. Just how much I could improve. So that was huge, if I had to give it to one [influence], I’d say that. Then that kind of started the whole train of all this other stuff I started listening to and pulling from when I was creating.

As far as when you play live, I saw you at Schubas in 2017, and even two years later I still remember how intense your energy and stage presence was. Are there any performers that you look to for inspiration and influence in that sense?

Yeah definitely. There’s the classic ones, like you can throw in the David Bowies and Freddie Mercurys. I think at an early age I caught the music bug and saw a lot of performances that just really moved me. I feel like that’s another aspect to this whole artistic side of making music. There’s a lot of current musicians...it’s hard to think on the spot, but I really love the new Tyler, the Creator album, and I feel like the whole performance element that he’s added to it is really clever and engaging. Fun to watch. I’ll go with one more...Even like BrockHampton. I don’t think that’s a perfect example in terms of who I am, but it’s being able to perform in a high energy type of way that can really grab people but also using elements of the stage space more than just room for a band. Like being able to explore it as a set. Something that really resinates with me and my background, but also being able to shape the world and make it more engaging for the audience.

I see the next show you have announced is at Elsewhere in September. Do you have any plans for a tour later this year, or anything else you can kind of tease?

Nothing definite to tease right away, but the agents are always looking out for me and letting me know some opportunities. For me, right now I’ve been super lucky that people respond to the music so well and love coming to the shows and get really into it, but I’m also still at the moment tweaking some of the songs for the record and getting that all ready. I’m hoping to be on the road as soon as possible, but for now I want to focus on the record. But the summer is still going, there’s still some time before the Elsewhere show. There’s a chance something might come in the fall, but the record is the priority. Once the live shows and tour start happening, it will be well worth the wait though.

Can fans expect some new material at the September show or any other potential upcoming gigs?

Yeah, I think the new show will be debuting a lot of new songs and a whole new structure. As well as some of the classics but with a little bit of a twist to keep everything in the same world. It will be a nice mix of a lot of new stuff as well as some of the songs that helped get me where I am today.

Nice! Then how would you sum up the newer material that we haven’t heard yet in three words, just to keep it vague and not give too much away? You can say more about it if you want, or keep it at three words. 

I guess if I had to say three words to explain the music...introspective, abrasive soul. That’s so like music-based.  I think that another direction is playing with the themes in terms of the songwriting. I think that’s the best because I want the record to speak for itself, and I want to have the whole body fully-formed and realized before I give anything else, but sonically, it will be some sort of avant soul that has a little aggression, but ultimately lies in this smooth world too. 

That’s a great one-sentence tease and should get people intrigued! Anything else you want to share that’s in the works?

Working on the record….there’s gonna be some more music coming out this summer. We’re getting some more visuals ready too. In the meantime, my whole creative collective that I associate with is also releasing new music, so just supporting them and ready to take over in 2020 I guess. To the best of my ability.

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A Chat With: Black Belt Eagle Scout

Black Belt Eagle Scout is the creation of singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Katherine Paul. Paul first got into playing music at a young age as she grew up in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and experienced native drumming, singing, and arts. Now based in Portland, where she moved in 2007, Paul started writing music for her own project after becoming immersed in the city’s music scene by playing drums and guitar for numerous other bands.

As an indigenous, queer woman and self-proclaimed radical feminist, Katherine Paul has worked hard and paved her own path to share her voice and her journey with the world. Paul’s debut album Mother of My Children clearly paints a picture of her stories, remaining transparent and honest from start to finish, and her stage presence possesses the same authenticity and composed intensity as her songwriting. Paul’s genuine nature and boundless talent as a creator continues to connect with listeners from different corners of the world, and this month, she will be joining Julia Jacklin on a tour across the country.

A couple of weeks ago when the tour was just beginning, Paul took some time to chat with me over the phone during a drive through the east coast. We talked about her current sources of inspiration, her new single “Loss & Relax,” elevating the underdogs, and what we can expect from her show at Schubas this Wednesday, May 8th. Tune in below to my chat with Black Belt Eagle Scout.

Black Belt Eagle Scout is Katherine Paul // Photo by Jason Quigley

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I wanted to start off talking about your early days. I know that you grew up in a small Indian reservation and you’ve said “Indigenous music is the foundation for all of my music.” In addition to your background and the music you learned with your family, what are some other sources of inspiration that you look to when writing now?

I’m currently in a van and we’re driving to New York City, and we’re playing shows. So I feel like at the moment, I’m inspired by the people that I meet and I’m inspired by this life that I have, where I get to drive all over this beautiful country. Right now we’re in Maryland I think. It’s so green and there are these really beautiful purple flowers that kind of look like cherry blossoms, but they’re purple. It’s just so beautiful here and I think that having this life is an inspiring thing for me right now. I feel really happy on tour and sometimes that doesn’t always happen to people. I don’t always feel happy on tour, but right now I’m having a really great time being on the road. And I think that having a healthy and happy tour life is really important for your mental health, and being able to keep your creativity flowing.

Yeah totally. Then in April you just shared “Loss & Relax” from the forthcoming 7” [out April 26th]. What was that creative process and your frame of mind like for this single, and how does it compare to the songs your wrote on your debut album?

Well “Loss & Relax” was written during the time I was recording Mother of My Children. I started writing the first guitar riff, and I wanted to put it on the album, but I just felt like it wasn’t finished and it wasn’t to a point where I wanted to share it. So I kept it in my back pocket and throughout the next year after recording Mother of My Children, I started playing with people and having a live band. I played with a bunch of friends and they helped me realize what that song could be and its potential. It was really interesting being able to play and flesh out a song in a live capacity. In terms of the intensity— I feel like that’s why the song is so intense is because I was able to have that experience of playing it with people. The song also was about the journey home to record Mother of My Children. It’s kind of a perspective song about what that was like and why I needed to go record that album. I think that the way the song is now in its recorded version, I’m very proud of it. I put a lot of effort into figuring out what parts go where and what additions need to be. Basically producing the song.

Yeah, it sounds great now. I’m glad it’s getting a proper release in its own time.

Yeah and that’s kind of why it’s on the 7” It was a lingering element that I don’t know if it would fit on an album in itself.

The music video [for “Loss & Relax”] is a perfect visualization of returning home, and what you’re describing in the song. It’s very cool to see you return to Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and to see you in your element.

I talk about my home a lot and I talk about where I’m from. I feel like besides people who I grew up with there and maybe my close friends who have gone back to visit with me, you don’t really know what that looks like. I wanted to be able to share that and to give a face to the name.

Yeah I think it definitely does that! I also wanted to mention while we’re on the subject of recording Mother of My Children, you played every instrument on the record. What were some of those challenges that you felt while recording and wearing so many different hats during the process, and what motivated you to continue down that path of being a multi-instrumentalist?

Before Mother of My Children, I had done this little demo where I also played all of the instruments, but it was done pretty much in a couple of takes per instrument, and it was very demo-ish sounding. So I already had this idea of “If I can do this myself, I can create an album myself.” I had that mentality going into Mother of My Children that I want to be able to do this myself… I know how to play all these instruments. I know how to put together songs. It’s something that I have knowledge about. So I was like why not just do it? I’m gonna do it!

Yeah I’m sure it gave you complete creative control then, which is important with a first release. And each instrument will come across on the record how you wanted it to.

It definitely is, but it’s also hard because you don’t have someone who you can bounce ideas off. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut and rather than feeling validated about an idea, which that sort of thing can be hard for me— Just being able to be like oh, I’m not sure about this part, and then not having anyone to have that conversation with. I don’t work with any producers, so it’s basically just me and a recording engineer. I would do it all myself if I knew how to record, mix and master, and have it sound nice. That’s definitely a goal of mine down the road. The way that I work is I like to record into the night and I like to take breaks, and that doesn’t always work when you’re paying for studio time and you have a time limit. That was one thing that was difficult— being on a budget and trying to record the instruments by yourself. I paid for the whole thing all by myself and went in every day and played every instrument all by myself. At the end of every day, I was exhausted. I was trying to get as much done as I could. It’s not cheap to record in the studio, so I had my little savings and was like this is as much as I can spend, so let’s try to get this done in this amount of time.  I was fortunate enough to stay with my parents because I recorded in Anacortes, WA, which is where I was born and then I grew up 15 minutes outside of there at Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. So my mom was really helpful and she fed me and gave me food to take to the studio, and then I came home and could relax. If I didn’t have that, it would have been a lot more difficult having to create that album from scratch.

So speaking of your hard earned savings, I saw that article in Vulture where artists talked about their side hustles. You’ve worked in Portland in music venues as a talent buyer and in production. What’s something you’ve learned from being on both ends of the business as a performer and someone who books talent, or advice you’d give to other musicians who maybe haven’t been on the other side of it?

I’ve been working there for a long time. I still work there but not in the same capacity that I did before I decided to embark on a really long tour. I started working at Mississippi Studios after I graduated college. It was my first job out of college and they liked me enough that I’ve worked there for seven and a half years. I’ve done so many jobs there...I was production manager, then I was box office, then I’ve done ticket managing. I was the talent buyer, and then I was just like an office manager. So I feel like I’ve sort of lived the life of being in music venue production, and having that experience and while also being a musician….One of the things with Mississippi Studios is that it was established by a musician, so I was able to go on tour in other bands that I was in, and they let people take time off of work to go on tour, and then come back and work. They’re very understanding of that. Being a musician and also working at a venue, it feels like you get to be some sort of superhuman musician at times. Like you know what’s going on for your job side, and also you know what to do for being in a band. Being on the road, I’ve been advancing all of my shows. I’m essentially like my own tour manager— I have been putting in a lot of work to make sure the whole project is going along the schedule. So it’s an interesting thing to have this knowledge. I think that some people when they get to a certain point in their music career, they go on to tour and they go on album cycles, so they understand what it’s like. But as a musician that’s first starting out, you might not always have that knowledge. I don’t know what sort of advice I’d give in terms of your question.

It’s interesting still to hear your take on the benefits of knowing what’s going on from both sides. It’s good to be knowledgeable.

Yeah it just takes a huge amount of work to be a musician. It’s also interesting going around to different music venues. Sometimes I realize that not every music venue is the best venue to work with. Some sound engineers suck to work with. Some promoters...it isn’t always perfect. So it’s always an interesting thing to realize.

Totally, then talking about your stage presence, I actually got to see you at SXSW this year for the first time. I loved your set and how there would be more mellow moments followed by you just shredding on the guitar. Who are some performers that you admire their stage presence or maybe look to for inspiration?

That’s a hard question! These questions I always have to think about them for a while, and I feel like I’m gonna have a good answer in like an hour. But I will say this— I love energy. And if there’s something that has energy, no matter what it is…it’s a certain kind of energy though. It’s this intensity. It’s like this love and this passion. I’m so drawn to seeing somebody who’s performing and they’re just getting so immersed into their performance because they’re feeling what they’re putting  out there.

Yeah like a genuine energy, and you can really tell when someone has that genuine energy, versus them just trying to put on a show.

For sure, and that’s my most favorite kind of performer. Exactly that. Someone who’s genuine, who’s putting out passion and energy. I love intensity, especially I love intense drummers who just get into it. One person that pops into my head, when I brought up drumming, is Janet Weiss. Her drumming intensity is what I’m totally into… that sort of element. Sleater-Kinney was one of my favorite bands growing up, and they definitely had a very intense stage presence and performance. So bands like that, I’m super into. I get bored when I see bands that are just kind of standing there not really feeling it. Coming from my music venue side, I’ve seen a ton of shows, I’ve worked a ton of shows, so I feel like there are certain shows where I’m like eh, not really into it. But then some of them, I’m like this is really amazing.

So this might be kind of another question that’s difficult to answer on the fly, but I’ve seen you’ve been asked a lot in other interviews about your identity as a queer, indigenous woman, and you’ve said “Having this identity—radical indigenous queer feminist—keeps me going.” You’ve also said how important it is for you to use your platform to elevate other voices in a music space that still is predominately male and predominately white, which I think is great and very much needed. What are some actions that you would you like to see from maybe venues or other artists moving forward to also help elevate these voices that are still seen as the “minority?”

One thing that really annoys me is when white indie rock musicians just don’t realize the importance of people of color. I think that more people need to be lifting up indigenous voices and queer voices if they don’t identify that way-- if they’re like cis, white, heteronormative people, I think that’s really important. It’s something that should be done a lot more. However you can… in the most respectful way of course. One person who is actually on my label, who I really respect and who I consider an awesome ally and accomplice is Elizabeth from Land of Talk. She is constantly in support of indigenous people and is showing that on social media and at her shows. She’s the kind of person where I feel like white people can learn by example. They can see her and see what sort of things they need to do. I don’t know…pay us more money too I guess!

Totally, just being more aware. I think that there are definitely some people that would want to help and be an ally, but they might not be sure how to take the first step, so giving that example of Elizabeth is a great start.

I mean also, first and foremost, just educate yourself. Like if you don’t know any people of color musicians or queer musicians, get on that and support that. And help uplift those voices if you have a certain platform, and if you see somebody that is doing an amazing job at whatever, just help raise that up.

Yeah keep sharing and supporting. Wrapping up then, you’re currently on tour with Julia Jacklin, who is also great! There’s a lot of sold out shows on this run and I’m excited for the Chicago show. What can we expect as far as your live set up? Will there be any new songs?

Yeah so tonight is our first show with Julia Jacklin, and I am so excited! I’m very excited to meet her and her band and to embark on this really long tour together. We are gonna be playing a couple new songs. “Loss & Relax” will be on the setlist, then we have another song called “Half Colored Hair” that’s the b-side of the 7-inch. We’re incorporating that into the set as well. Then for this tour, I have a 4-piece band, we have two guitarists and a bass and drums, so it will sound a lot more full. I’m really excited about that.

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Black Belt Eagle Scout’s show with Julia Jacklin at Schubas on May 8th is sold out— but check out the rest of the tour dates here.

Keep up with Black Belt Eagle Scout on Facebook // Twitter // Instagram and tune into Mother of My Children below!

A Chat With: Jungle Green

Originally the moniker for solo songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Smith, Jungle Green is now a six-piece collective that creates timeless and genre-fluid music. Listening through the more than twenty releases on Jungle Green’s Bandcamp page, it’s impossible to pinpoint a specific style for Smith and his bandmates’ sound. There are some songs that sound like they were plucked right off a 1960’s hits compilation, while others play upon more modern elements; Some songs have a hint of twang, while others have a trace of jazz. Some of the recordings are more layered with a full band sound, and some are lo-fi recordings of Smith and his piano. The members of Jungle Green are jacks-of-all-trades, and their discography definitely reflects that. The extensive catalog also gives an insight to Smith’s boundless creative energy as a songwriter.

While I’ve been seeing Jungle Green’s name on bills around town for months now, I finally got my first chance to see them live earlier this month, when they opened up for Shy Boys at the Beat Kitchen. After their set, they took some time to chat with me about their evolution as a full band, touring with The Lemon Twigs, recording with Jonathan Rado and what’s next for them. Tune into Jungle Green and check out our conversation below!

Jungle Green is Adam Miller, Adam Obermeier, Alex Heaney, Andrew Smith, Emma Collins and Vivian McCall // Photo by Mitch Mitchell

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So I know Jungle Green originally started as a solo project of Andrew’s, and now it’s evolved into a big old collective of six people. Can you talk a little bit about how that evolved and how you all met?

Andrew: Yeah totally! I first met Alex in an acting class. We became great friends and started kind of picking up shows every now and then. He would play guitar and we would do comedy bits. It was really not very good, but it was fun. And that’s what it’s all about, having fun! Then I just gradually met everyone else through school and you know, in 2015 and 2016. I just wanted to get shows and have a fuller sound, so I recruited people who were cool and I thought were talented and fun to be around.

Adam O: I met Andrew at a party, the same night I met Adam M. We hit it off and I got his number, and we had plans to see Angry Birds the movie— the Summer 2016 blockbuster. Shout out Angry Birds. And yeah he blew me off, and then I didn’t see him again until September and we got tacos together. I had the large popcorn cause I thought we could share…

Andrew: That’s true, but now we’re friends. Now we live together. It’s funny how things can start one way and fate will turn it another way.

Then Andrew, I know you’re not from Chicago. Is anyone originally from here?

Andrew: Yeah, I’m from Massachusetts.

Vivian: I’m from Texas. Everyone’s from all around. Texas, St. Louis, Kentucky….

What would you say is your favorite part of creating music in Chicago, versus your hometowns?

Andrew: These guys right here!

Adam M: It’s nice to be in a city where there’s just lots of people who are into music and lots of venues.

Andrew: I like the amount of venues. It’s nice! I like that I’ve met these guys.

Definitely! Then in the Fall you toured with the Lemon Twigs. How was that experience?

Andrew: That was really fun! That was in October.

Adam M: It was just really amazing that they asked us to play. We have mutual friends, but we didn’t know them super well. And they kind of just took a risk.

Andrew: You’re taking a big risk asking a band you’ve never met to tour cause it’s like you’re stuck with them for a month, they could be assholes.

Adam M: But it ended up going really well, and they’re great people. It was just a good time.

Andrew: It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.

Adam O: It just kind of came out the blue too.

Andrew: Yeah and we got really tight too, on the tour. We got our stride.

Yeah, I wanted to ask about your live show, and how you all switch instruments at different points and mix it up. When you were putting together the live show, is that something you decided to do from the start or is that more recent?

Andrew: That kind of came about because--We switch instruments, and we do it a lot cause we kind of play multiple things and people want to have a take on an instrument. It spices things up and also makes everyone happy.

Alex: It started more almost because we were forced to. It started with us recording different things cause we just did different stuff. Then when we went to make it a live show, we were like how are we gonna do this? So we just had to switch every song. It was kind of fun to do.

Andrew: I really like it! It’s really fun, and it keeps every song really unique.

Adam O: When we arrange, it’s kind of just like Oh, I sat down at this instrument when we were arranging this, so I guess I’m just gonna play that. It’s a fun, organic way to arrange.

Vivian: Yeah, everybody has a really different take from everyone else on each instrument. If you just mess with those combinations, you don’t really have to try that hard to get something that doesn’t sound like what you’ve done before.

Will you ever mix it up from show to show, or is it pretty much set at the current rotation in your live show?

Andrew: It’s set every show.

Yeah I saw you play a solo set last week, but I haven’t seen the full band until today.

Andrew: This didn’t really directly influence it, but there’s a band I like called Palberta. They switch every song--granted there’s only three [of them] playing guitar, bass, and drums, but they’re switching every song. I saw them and I was like oh, this is really cool. That maybe had some play in it.

Adam M: It helps when everyone is a Jack of All Trades.

Adam O: We all put a lot of effort into the instruments we’re not as good at.

Yeah it’s kind of like a band buffet.

Andrew: Yeah, a continental breakfast.

Emma: I think it also helps Andrew’s persona as the frontman. It makes what he does more exciting. He’s able to nail the drums and be the lead singer kind of hanging back, and then he comes forward.

Yeah, it’s very dynamic and interactive! And it’s not like you’re just going through the motions.

Vivian: It used to be, in comparison to what we do now. We all used to stick to one instrument and never ever switch, and Andrew was always behind the drums.

Andrew: It’s kind of boring [to stick to the same instrument]. It’s boring the way we did it. It’s not boring for every band.

Vivian: It was just missing out on how Andrew is a really good frontman and brings a really cool energy up there. It was like a waste when he was just at the drums.

Andrew: I’m trying to get to the point eventually where I’m just not really playing drums.

Yeah your stage presence is great! When you came off the stage and you were wandering around, it’s very much in your face and breaks the fourth wall. It felt very present. Is there anyone else besides Palberta that influences your stage presence or that you admire?

Andrew: Sure, yeah! There’s a lot. I really like people like Sam France of Foxygen. My favorite guys are like Sam, and David Yow of Jesus Lizard, who’s like the best. I like a lot of punk frontmen, I feel bad I don’t know his name, but the guy from Bad Brains who does back flips. I don’t know the band too well but I love that. I think a lot of punk frontmen, which I guess makes it kind of interesting cause we’re not really punk music.

Adam M: We’re not very tough at all.

Andrew: I have straight up run away from someone who looked remotely scary.

Switching gears to your recorded music, you’ve recently worked with Jonathan Rado as a producer. How did that experience go?

Andrew: Yeah that was a year ago, that was great! It was really fun.

Adam M: It was amazing. This probably goes for everyone, but I feel like my life is sort of pre-recording with Rado and post-recording with Rado. Just the way he approaches recording and he just keeps a really good attitude the whole time. He’s very encouraging but also it was just really inspiring to see how he works a song up from the beginning.

Vivian: He did really keep a lot of positivity— cause it’s hard when you have six people and everybody has their own opinions. You have firm opinions when you’re making final decisions about the arrangements and how these songs are supposed to sound [on the record]. Then you’re doing it for 12 hours for a week and a half.

Andrew: It’s hard to do but I think it was as smooth as it could have been.

Cool, then the last thing I wanted to talk about was the music video that Vivian mentioned you were recording over the weekend. Can you talk about it a bit?

Andrew: It was really fun, Alex directed it and he did a great job.

Alex: I went to film school, and I did really lame projects, but everyone was nice enough to let me take some creative liberties with it.

Andrew: He did a great job and he’s available for hire!

Alex: We’re editing it now and it’s gonna come out pretty soon.

Vivian: We just had a lot of fun with it.  I think we kind of tried to do a little bit of what we do onstage and keep it fun.

Andrew: It’s for a song called “Cryin’”

Photos of Jungle Green at Beat Kitchen, April 2019

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Catch Jungle Green at our first showcase of the Summer with Jude Shuma and Fran at Sleeping Village on 6/25— tickets are only $5 and the beer is just $1.

Keep up with Jungle Green on Facebook + Instagram

Catching Up With: Ten Fé

Way back in 2017, shortly after ANCHR was just starting, I talked to the duo Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan of Ten Fé over a spotty FaceTime audio connection in honor of their first full length album, Hit The Light. During our first conversation, I learned about their early days of busking in the London Underground, who some of their favorite bands were at the moment, and how they collaborate together.

Recently, Moorehouse and Duncan, along with their bandmates Johnny Drain, Greg Katsantonis, and Rob Shipley, made their first stop ever in Chicago to perform to a sold out Schubas Tavern. I sat down with the full band this time to catch up face-to-face and chat everything from their newest album Future Perfect, Present Tense to performing on JBTV and what they do to stay entertained on the road. For all that and more, catch up with Ten Fé below!

Ten Fé is Ben Moorhouse, Johnny Drain, Leo Duncan, Greg Katsantonis, and Rob Shipley (Left to Right, from standing to sitting)

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You just put your second album, Future Perfect, Present Tense out at the beginning of March, so first of all, congrats on that! What would you say are some of the biggest differences stylistically or as far as the process goes between this one and your first record?

Leo: The biggest difference is we did the first record completely just me and Ben. Rob played on a bit of it [the first one]. It was mostly me and Ben and then when we came to do this one, it was the five of us, although we had a different drummer. Greg’s just joined us. The process was different because it became more about capturing five people’s energy you know? Sometimes that works and sometimes we had to work in a way that we’d done on the first record. I think stylistically we wanted to make it a lot more rootsy and honest and less electronic, and break down any distance between the listener and us. I don’t know, can you tell that?

Yeah, I think so! This past week I was listening to Hit The Light and the new record, and I can definitely see that. Anyone else have anything to add about their mindset or stylistic goals going into this second album?

Ben: Yeah, I think we had just come back from tour, sort of what Leo was saying. We were back from tour and thinking of that in the time we had as a band and playing on the stages and the sound we were making. I think we were sort of excited by that and the prospect of then doing it again and making it grow and getting bigger. I think that was quite a driving force behind this album. We wanted it to sound more live and more kind of visceral I think. It’s like, it feels like it’s an ongoing thing is we want it to get more live and rootsy. We’re still sort of developing that now.

Yeah, there’s definitely that energy of being together and playing live that comes across. What would you say was your favorite moment or memory during the process of recording or writing this new record? Anything you look back on with a fond heart?

Leo: There’s been plenty of highs and lows during the making of it. We ran out of money. I lost my voice totally. So it hasn’t been the easiest to make, but the highs definitely outweigh the lows. My favorite memory probably is during the summer when we were coming to the end of it in London. We finished it in London and we collected everybody in our studio in Tottenham and we recorded a choir of about twenty of our friends. The football was on, it was the World Cup, and we had the BBQ on the roof the studio. Then we all went downstairs to record the vocals of the song “Superrich.” There’s loads of people singing on that song in the chorus, sort of a hard knock life style singalong. That just felt really good. It was a very hot day.

Nice! Then this is actually your first time in Chicago right? How has Chicago been treating you so far?

Rob: Well we haven’t had much time to explore. We sort of skimmed Chicago on the way up to Milwaukee. We went to Illinois state beach is it? It was coming down from Milwaukee about half way to Chicago, there’s like a strip of green and you get right up to the shore on Lake Michigan. Which was pretty wicked, we don’t really get horizons like that-- well you’ve got to go to the sea. That was pretty special. Last night we didn’t really have that much time to explore. We just sort of had to grab moments when we can.

Leo: We went to Greek Town. We went to a really nice restaurant. Greg is Greek.

Greg: Yeah we had really nice Greek food. I approved.

Then today you played JBTV in the afternoon, which is a staple in the music community here! How’d you like Jerry and the experience?

Leo: So cool man! It just seems like he’s got this thing that he believes in. And he’s just surrounded by all these interns, you know. He was saying he hasn’t been well lately, but he’s got so much energy. It’s just unbelievable so that’s amazing to see.

Yeah, he’s still always there despite having cancer. He’s a fighter!

Rob: Yeah he said he had his operation two weeks ago. He’s bouncing around still.

I know, his energy is great. So the show tonight is also sold out, which is pretty great for a first show here!

Leo: It’s amazing! To come so far away from home and have it sold out is the best feeling.

Do you have anything special planned for this show or this tour that people can look forward to?

Leo: Like Ben was saying, it’s a real process still. You know, it’s hard work but it’s also exciting. We’re really trying to do more with the vocals on this tour. It’s taking a bit of time to get it as right as we want it to be, but hopefully that will come through.

How was the rest of the tour been going so far? Have there been any other stand out shows?

Leo: Montreal was a real favorite of mine. It was like an oasis in a desert of America and Canada. But all the shows have been wicked in their own way.

How have you guys been staying entertained on the road? Any favorite podcasts or albums or shows you’ve been watching or listening to?

Greg: I’ve been watching loads of “Only Fools and Horses.” I don’t know if you know what that is. It’s a British sitcom.

Leo: Yeah, “Only Fools and Horses” has been keeping Greg happy, and the rest of us are just trying to keep--there’s a big bag of prunes in the back of the car. We’re trying to avoid eating too many of them.

So then the last time I interviewed you, which was just over two years ago, you talked about how you’re into Kevin Morby and Twin Peaks and some other Chicago bands. Are there any other new bands that have been on your heavy rotation lately?

Leo: Amen Dunes has released a great album. We listened to Delicate Steve’s new album in the car. The same people really, there’s no one really new that’s come along that I can think of. Kevin Morby, Whitney--

Oh some of the guys from Whitney were here yesterday for Stella Donnelly’s show.

Leo: Stella Donnelly played here last night? No way! Ewan Pearson, the person who mixed our first album mixed her album as well. That’s mad! So she’s touring the states at the moment?

Yeah, just missed her! It was a sold out show last night too, so a good weekend at Schubas.

Leo: Did you see her?

Yeah I was here! It was really good. It was one of the best shows I’ve been, so you have a lot to live up to. You know how you can get jaded, or maybe it’s just me, from going to shows all the time? But her show was so great, I just forgot about being tired and it being long week and the mood of the room was just so positive.

Leo: Oh so we’ll blame Stella if you haven’t got any energy tonight. But how come there seems to be a lot of bands [coming out of Chicago], like Whitney, Twin Peaks…?

Yeah there’s something in the water in Chicago. There’s just so many bands coming out of Chicago that might not be at the level of Whitney or Twin Peaks yet but they’ll sell out shows here and a bunch that went down to South By.

Leo: Oh can you give us a few names so you can check them out?

Well so I actually put on an ANCHR Magazine showcase at SXSW, so a few on that were Blue Dream, The Evening Attraction, Thompson Springs, Uma Bloo….I’ll just send you guys the flyer. There’s a lot of great local bands that play here at Schubas too. So wrapping up, anything else you guys are looking forward to this year or hoping to accomplish on this album cycle?

Leo: Stay in one piece by the end of this tour!

Don’t eat all the prunes in one day?

Leo: Finish all the prunes by the time we reach the west coast!

Rob: Hopefully we’ll be back out here in the autumn. We’re still quite early on with this new album. We’ve got this tour, we’ve got another big tour straight off the back in Europe. Then we’ll hopefully be back here as soon as possible.

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Keep up with Ten Fé on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Feature: Glasgow's The Dunts Have Invested in Themselves, And You Should Too

In the weeks leading up to the annual SXSW festival this year, my inbox got inundated with emails upon emails of showcase recommendations and requests to feature or interview certain bands during the festival. While some emails certainly may have slipped through the cracks, I tried my best to listen to any of the bands that I heard from— and one of those emails just happened to be from a Glasgow band called The Dunts. The Dunts are still a relatively young band with just a couple of EPs under their belt, but they immediately jumped out from the hundreds of emails I got when I took my first listen of “Dimitri,” their most streamed track on Spotify.

The Dunts have a sound that’s familiar in a way you just can’t quite put your finger on; They remind you of so many of your favorite bands without sounding derivative of them. And since forming in 2016, they have garnered buzz with their authentic, rowdy stage presence and guitar-driven, sticky melodies. I got the chance to see The Dunts perform during the afternoon on my second day at SXSW, and when I arrived at the British Embassy venue to see a room packed to the brim, it was clear that I wasn’t the only one eager to experience their raved-about live show.

Following their SXSW debut, the four band members were buzzing from the successful show as they took some time to chat with me afterwards. Guitarist and vocalist Rab Smith tells me that so far, SXSW has been the best experience of his life— and at that point, they were only three or four days into the festival. For most of the band, it’s their first time in Austin (or America in general) and it was impossible not to sense their genuine gratitude for being able to perform over here. David McFarlane says he’d been to The States before, but not since he was about nine years old. “The whole experience so far has been half like a holiday, half like working. So far it’s been amazing. I’m enjoying every single second. Even the hangover,” he says.

The band also admits there’s definitely been some culture shock coming over here, mostly in the form of huge meal portions and free pours of alcohol at the bars, but for the most part the trip has exceeded their expectations in every way. “It’s so refreshing to be here. Like with Glasgow, it’s not that people aren’t friendly, but you don’t really go around the street talking to random people. So it’s refreshing to be here. Feels kind of good for the soul,” Smith says.

Leading up to their first SXSW gig at the British Embassy, Smith says they’d all been able to check out some shows there in the days prior. “We saw how good the sound system was and I think we were all excited,” he says, but he and the band also admit there were some nerves as well. As a spectator of the show, I was impressed by how quickly The Dunts commanded the room in an unfamiliar setting; everyone listened intently, either dancing or nodding their head along to the melodic anthems. The band looked right at home as they thrashed around the stage and drummer Kyle McGhee let loose on the drum kit, and at one point, Smith even hopped off the stage to sing amongst the audience members. Despite being so far from Glasgow, The Dunts fit right in. I ask what bands have stage presence that they admire, or what kind of frontmen inspire them, and they mention another band from Glasgow, called Gallus. “He doesn’t play guitar, it’s just him singing. He’s crazy, running around,” McFarlane says of Gallus’ frontman Barry Dolan, and Smith compares him to the likes of Freddie Mercury. Smith says he also admires the frontman of Ireland’s Fontaines D.C., who played their first SXSW this year as well.

Back on the subject of the Glasgow music scene, I mentioned an article from Noisey with the tagline that Glasgow isn’t all just electronic music, which The Dunts had tweeted about. The article discusses the pub/venue called the Priory, which all of the members of The Dunts say is an absolute staple in their music scene. There’s a PA, but the Priory has no stage and it’s a dive bar frequented by musicians that have bit of grit about them, but that’s what makes it perfect, Smith says. “If it wasn’t for the Priory, we wouldn’t have met all the people that we’ve met that are best friends with us, and we wouldn’t have gotten some of the opportunities we’ve got,” Colin McGachy adds. “The guy that runs The Priory is a good friend of ours as well now. There’s a lot of UK promoters that use pay to play, but John Jokey is anti that. He’s the antithesis of that, he wants to pay bands fairly and he loves the music. It’s because of guys like him and the pubs like The Priory… It’s guys like that that make all the difference,” McFarlane says. While the Priory is a place primarily for new bands to cut their teeth, it’s mainly about the sense of community for Glasgow musicians. “You get a feeling that it’s this big fucking connected thing and everyone looks out for everyone. It’s amazing that new bands want to be a part of that community and it’s amazing to go and see them,” Smith says about their music scene.

Another place in Glasgow that The Dunts rave about is the recording studio 7West, which the band had been working in a few weeks prior to SXSW, recording their next single, slated for release this Spring. “Bands will go to 7West and pay the money that it costs, cause it costs a lot but it’s worth it,” they say about the studio, which is run by Chris Marshall (Marshall and Johnny Madden from Baby Strange also produce The Dunts’ music). While they admit it can be pricey to record in the Glasgow staple, they all agree that any band worth their salt in the UK will go to 7West. “You have to invest. I think that’s what we do well in the industry. You really do get what you pay for,” Smith says. And as a listener, you can definitely tell that the band doesn’t skimp on their presentation when you listen to their first two EPs. There’s a cheeky, punk attitude embedded into The Dunts’ music, but it’s presented in a meticulously polished fashion that tells you about the time and investment that went into the final product.

And ultimately it’s that determination and their willingness to put in the effort and hard work that has gotten The Dunts the opportunities they’d had so far, and will continue to get. The Dunts played Reading and Leeds Fest last year and they’re slated for other UK festivals like TRNSMT and Camden Rocks Fest this summer, but they’ve got their sights set for even more in the future, like playing the famous Barrowland Ballroom venue in Glasgow and the coveted BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury. They’ve got the work cut out for them, but they’re ready to take it on, says Smith. “If there’s any wee children that are listening to this, that have music instruments and are worried about not being able to do it or don’t believe in themselves, just believe in yourself. Work hard. We’ve all come from fucking nothing. We are the proof if you keep going, keep plugging, it doesn’t matter who says no. It doesn’t matter who ignores you, if you believe in yourself, you’ll do it,” he adds.

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The Dunts have invested in themselves—now invest in them too by keeping up with them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and listening to their latest EP.

A Chat With: Native Sun

NYC’s Native Sun promises to play every show like it’s their last. A weighted promise, especially for a band who signed on to play more than seven shows over the course of a few days at this year’s SXSW, but one that they not only live up to, but exceed. If you’ve ever seen Danny Gomez, Jake Pflum, Alexis Castro and Mauricio Martinez play a show together, then you’ve undoubtedly felt the surge of energy that they release each and every time they get on a stage, and you’ve walked away knowing that they just poured everything they had into that performance. At least, that was my experience when I saw Native Sun play to a packed house at Cheer Up Charlie’s indoor venue on the final Saturday night of SXSW. It was a performance that inspired a crowd surfer (despite the venue’s low ceilings) and ended with Gomez on the floor of the stage.

Despite the exertion of Saturday night’s show and all those prior, when I met up with Native Sun the following afternoon, the band seemed anything but worn down as they got ready to play their final show of the festival. Perhaps it was the spiritual awakening of Austin, Texas that Pflum experienced that kept their spirits high (more on that later), but when talking to Native Sun, I got an immediate sense of their gratitude and appreciation for being able to create, play, and share their music. If you’re not yet familiar with Native Sun, get to know them more as we discuss their favorite musical discoveries of SXSW, their place in the NYC arts scene, a wild night in Nashville, and more!

Native Sun is Mauricio Martinez, Jake Pflum, Danny Gomez, and Alexis Castro (Left to Right)

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Now that we’re on the final day of SXSW, and it’s been a long week with lots of shows, what has been a personal favorite memory or highlight from one of your shows this week?

Danny: We played Spider House yesterday after this ridiculous band called The Sloths. They had a lot of moves. They covered “Gloria” at the end. But after the show, we stole a Link Wray poster that they had from the venue. We thought that was kind of very part of our DNA to do that. I don’t regret it. We did it for the love of rock’n’roll.

Alexis: Yesterday we played at Cheer Up Charlie’s and there was someone in the crowd that knew lyrics to a song that we haven’t put out yet. We’ve only played it live maybe four times. They were singing along and I was confused.

That’s amazing. They came to all the shows this week so they know it now!

Mauricio: I feel like that’s the same [highlight] for me. I was confused—I don’t even know those lyrics! Someone was singing them. So that was different and cool.

Jake: Hi I’m Jake—

And you’re watching the Disney Channel?

Jake: And you’re watching the Disney Channel! I’m a huge fan of Fugazi and their refusal to use a setlist and how they just kind of call it based on feel every time that they play. That’s something that I had hoped to get to with this band some day, and we had just been playing so much leading up to SXSW and during SXSW, and the last couple shows we didn’t have enough time to write a set list. So finally we were just locked in and sharing the heart beat. Calling songs out during the show. We all look at each other like “what are we doing?” and we just launch into it. That was a personal victory.

Nice! Were there any new bands that you discovered this week?

Danny: Yeah, I liked the Fontaines D.C. guys. We got to hang out with them and play pool and see some of their shows. They were really nice.

Jake: We’re gonna have a shared answer [himself and Mauricio].

Mauricio: We saw Haiku Hands. They were so fire.

Jake: I’ve never seen a band that loud. Ever.

Mauricio: They’re like Beastie Boys meets Missy Elliott.

Jake: It was a really great experience. I loved their performance. Not to mention that every bass hit was like shaking my entire skeleton.

Mauricio: Black Midi was super interesting also.

Alexis: I didn’t even have time to focus on any other sets. We were just running around for our shows.

Danny: Those were the main ones.

Your stage presence was really great at the Cheer Up Charlie’s show I got to see yesterday. People were vibing and crowd surfing—

Danny: People really react at our shows, which is something we’re thankful for. Cause you never know, sometimes where you’re doing something more intense, it doesn’t get the same reaction.

So as far as stage presence, is there anyone you look up to or really admire in that sense? Or anyone that inspires you when you’re performing?

Jake: I love Jimmy Page. I don’t think I’m as sexy, but that’s definitely maybe a starting point. I think for my own personal stage presence, the inspiration comes more from outside of music. Just life in general and what it’s like to live and how it can be frustrating and emotional and there’s a lot of pent up feelings: positive, negative, neutral, that go from when you wake up to before you can play. It’s definitely…I’ve said once before, that when I play, it’s like my body is trying to jump outside of itself.

Danny: That’s the best way to put it. Locking into the ethereal spirit of it all. Those are the entertainers that I like.

Mauricio: We’re lucky because we’re doing what we actually love doing.

Danny: Yeah, we have to fight for it so we’re gonna give it our all.

Mauricio: Exactly! If there’s two people in the show, we play like there’s a thousand.

Jake: We play like it’s not gonna happen again.

Mauricio: It’s my favorite thing to do in the world.

Danny: We’re always gonna give it 200 no matter what show you come to.

Nice! Then as far as your music, you had an EP come out at the end of last year. What can you tell me about the process behind those songs?

Jake: [The EP] was written a while before it was released. We started recording that right after the one before it came out. So our first EP was done, and we were already working the day after on recording. So they had been written a while. We kind of took our time to slowly build it from the ground up from a recording standpoint. And you know, New York City band, it’s like who’s got their basement free for two hours? How much can we get done?

Alexis: We recorded at my house.

Jake: We recorded at his house...we jumped around a bunch of different studios. We recorded saxophone in one studio, keyboards in someone else’s apartment, that sort of thing.

Danny: It was interesting, out of those six songs, four of them we went in dead set, and then “Sweet V” and “Modern Music” we kind of just decided on the spot. We had just written those maybe a couple weeks before that and just decided to go for it. So like those takes you hear of “Sweet V,” that’s the first time we made it through. It’s a very live experience in that sense. You hear him [Alexis] say “Fuck” at the end of it.

Do you guys do your own producing too or do you work with somebody else?

Danny: Not yet, hopefully soon!

Alexis: We’ve been doing demos by ourselves.

Jake: I think from like the technical definition of producing, a lot of it does land on our shoulders. We definitely have people engineering for us, and as far as like the ownership of the equipment. But it’s not like we’ve gone into a studio and we’re like here’s our song and someone’s going “I’m actually thinking we should restructure it.” None of that. We’re definitely owning it.

Danny: We’ve been working with this dude upstate called Kevin McMahon, who’s like a guru. He’s worked on a lot of records we like, like Fat White Family. Swans. He’s a weirdo. We love that.

As far as your collaboration as a band, how do you handle times when you might disagree? Or do you typically just agree to each handle your own parts?

Danny: I think we state our opinion and if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Alexis: Most things instinctually kinda work out. It just kind of works.

Mauricio: Now after a moment of playing together for a year and a half, we know how we should play for the sound we want to do. So I play the bass and I’m not gonna try to be super technical. I know how the song should sound, and what I should do. We now know our strategy.

Jake: There’s plenty of times where an idea will come into the practice space or the writing room or wherever we’re working on something, and someone will float an idea, and maybe it doesn’t land 100 percent. So yeah there’s disagreement, but just because it doesn’t make sense or it’s not a fully formed idea yet, it’s when we all figure it out together. There’s a song, ”Oedipus”…

Alexis: I used to hate that fucking song. Now it’s my favorite.

Jake: We just put it out on a 7 Inch, which we just put out here [during SXSW]. We just couldn’t figure it out. We couldn’t get on the same page, the tempo didn’t feel right. It’s not that anyone was playing incorrectly, it’s just that we were like out of sync. Then one day--

Danny: Oh, we did this kind of like art experiment, where they had us play for eight hours straight without stopping. And they documented the whole thing. On the breaks, they wanted us to jam. We started jamming on that song, and I remember Jake took a dump and came back and was like I got it! I figured out what was missing. We jumped into it and you see the process of how it all evolves.

Jake: Definitely a come to Jesus moment on the toilet.

As far as more new music, you mentioned there’s a newer unreleased song you’ve been playing here. What else have you guys got cooking for release this year?

Danny: Album!

Mauricio: It feels like its time.

Jake: We’ve got the two song 7”. Those songs will likely be on the final product of a full record. We recorded a bunch of songs with Kevin McMahon a few months ago, which we figured would maybe be like the starting point for that album, and we have a bunch of songs that we’ve been demo-ing ourselves.

Danny: Jake’s computer is the vault.

Jake: Exactly, I’ve got to lock it up. Alexis has the back up. So now we’re demoing the remainder of the songs we have and we’re just trying to fit the pieces together and see what makes the most sense as a complete project

Danny: We want something that’s a cohesive body of songs.

Nice, so you’re definitely more into full albums that sort of have a theme?

Danny: This could go there! It’s not gonna be like a wizard theme or anything like that. But we want it to feel like a body the whole way through. The records that I think we really love, be it from all different genres, are bodies of work that you know in their own respective rights.

Jake: 100 percent an album guy, start to finish, no shuffle. An album that’s ten singles that don’t really fit together has never been my sort of thing. So a cohesive piece-- sequencing is really important to me.

Danny: We want it to sound timeless. Like this record could have been from twenty years ago or that band still could be making this music in twenty years.

Cool, and then as far as the New York music scene, we were chatting a little bit earlier about bands like Gnarrcicists and Stuyedeyed—which they’re actually playing an ANCHR showcase on Friday back in Chicago.

Danny: Where’s that at?

Thalia Hall!

Danny: Nice that’s a big one! Hell yeah. Who else is playing?

Varsity, Rookie and Pool Holograph!

Danny: Oh sick, we love Rookie! We played with them—

Jake: Oh my god! I’m so glad you brought them up! Haiku Hands, I love you! Like next time I’m in Australia, I will find you, but Rookie was the best band that I have seen! God I love them!

Mauricio: Yeah they were fucking sick.

Jake: You know how South By goes, you play at 3PM and maybe that’s just not where everyone’s at right now. They played to like I think me and Rachel, our friend. And they were just SO good. They brought it, just like their energy. They brought it like they were playing to a huge crowd.

Yeah they played the ANCHR showcase here too and people were coming in off the street cause they heard them outside.

Jake: I think that like we’re purists and appreciators of classic rock-- those are classic rock students. Those are dudes that like Rock n’ Roll!

Ok so, we’ll have to do a show with you two in Chicago at some point is what I’m hearing! As far as the New York scene, though, what are some of the best and worst parts of the scene at the moment, in your opinion?

Danny: I think it’s very privilege and image obsessed. You know what I mean, some of these bands put on a front of this griminess, but once you really know them, that’s not really them. So we try to be honest about who we are cause we’ve had to struggle for it. So that’s my biggest thing with people in New York.

Jake: The best part of New York for me is that there’s so many opportunities to play, there’s so many venues to perform at. I’ve lived in a smaller town. I grew up in South Florida where there’s one venue and you can’t play at the one venue with the same three bands every week. It’s just like at some point people aren’t gonna come. So [In New York] you’ve got so many different places you can go. There’s so many different scenes that exist and I’m on a constant personal journey of trying to figure out what’s happening that I don’t know. Cause I know the world I run in, but what’s happening somewhere else, there’s all these other different bands. I see the SXSW list of all the bands coming from New York that I’ve never heard of, and it’s like who are they? What are they doing?

Danny: Actually a great band that we really like from New York is called Yaasss.

Jake: I really like Miranda and The Beat. There’s a lot of soul in those songs.

Danny: We played with them when they did a full Shangri-Las set at this fake prom show we did at Baby’s All Right.

Jake: There’s a lot of non-musical things that sort of revolve in our world that are really cool and make it a really fulfilling place to be and to be working on music and art. We’ve got friends who are unbelievable film makers and unbelievable photographers and poets. Our friends Rachel and Natalie run POND Magazine, which is an institution. There’s so many different things that are multimedia happening that it’s really inspiring to be around.

Danny: I’d get bored if I was hanging out with musicians all day, I like stimulation from other art.

Jake: From people making zines...there’s just stuff happening all the time!

Danny: That’s why we love Chicago!

Yeah that’s very similar in that sense. Then last thing I wanted to mention, Danny you said earlier that the ride down from NYC to Austin was interesting. What were some top moments from the road trip?

Mauricio: Yeah yeah, it was fun! We stopped in Nashville to sleep there. So we went out just because we’re in Nashville, so we’re like let’s have a beer at least. We go to this dive bar/trucker bar. We played some pool, had some disgusting tequila shots.

Jake: Grossest tequila I’ve had in my life. Why does Nashville have sweet tequila?

Mauricio: It was intense. So we went back to our hotel and wanted a little more. So we got to the hotel bar and they were closed, but the lady was like I’ll open the bar for you if you play a few songs.

Danny: So we got up there and did a few songs acoustic, but then she opened up the bar. Then she liked it so she invited us on this country tour bus, and we chilled with a bunch of different people that we don’t usually get to. It was great! You get to see all different paths of life when you’re sitting there with a kid with no teeth.

Mauricio: I held a knife.

Danny: He held a knife! This woman wanted him to hold her knife. I think that’s a sign of affection.

Jake: That’s really just how you say hello in Nashville I think!

D: Me and [Mauricio] did another song and that kid was like “Is that The Stooges?” And he smiles and you just see no teeth.

Mauricio: We didn’t think they were into that shit.

Danny: Yeah he was playing like “Wagon Wheel” and then he’s like I love The Stooges! Us too, dude.

Anything else you want to shout out, or let the world know as we wrap up?

Jake: I’d like to shout out the city of Austin, TX. I’d never been here before. This is both my first time at SXSW and in the state of Texas and the city of Austin. That being said I feel like I’ve had a personal spiritual awakening while being here. There’s been a door of a room shut inside my soul and the door has been kicked open and the lights been flicked on. And I feel like I am now me again. A me that I forgot that I was. I’m not being tongue and cheek. I feel like the keys are back in the ignition and I am revved. I’m ready.

Danny: He got that oil change.

Jake: My oil has been changed.

Alexis: The van’s oil has not been changed.

Jake: I got new windshield wipers. I got new headlights, I can see!

Danny: I just want everyone to pay attention to this year. It’s a crucial time, there’s a lot of people in this country that are being disserviced right now. I just want everyone to keep their eyes open and not shut off the doors. Right now is the time to do something.

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