How would you classify your music?
Our music has changed a bit over time, especially with this album. I’d still say we’re .. ‘classic indie rock”? If that’s a thing. I did try and experiment a lot this time with a bit of hip-hop loops and piano. It started with feeling that those two textures sounded good together. I don’t know how much of that came through but that’s where it started.
Who are some of your top 5 musical influences?
I’m getting older and it sounds cliché but as you age you have a harder time keeping up with what the ‘kids’ are listening to. I still listen to a lot of the stuff I was listening to 10-15 years ago. I still love REM, Radiohead, Sonic Youth etc. It sounds like an odd mix, but I really do think this album was influenced by .. Hamilton a bit, somehow. I’m not sure how, but I really loved that soundtrack. I’d also say for this specific album, I was slightly to highly (not sure) influenced by the Who’s Quadrophenia.
There’s a lot of references to rooms of a house on this album, what’s going on here – is the album all set in one place – is this a rock opera?
Yes, that was part of the idea. I don’t think I would call this a rock-opera per se – but maybe it is. It’s an album that focuses on one story – the story of a couple, living in one house in suburbia, during the pandemic, and focuses a lot on this whole sense of old-world ‘tradition’ in America that couple still feel to marry, to buy a house, to have kids – and then explores this sense that I think we as a society are exploring of balancing this notion of creating legacies for ourselves through children, with .. should we bring kids in this world, and where does responsibility lie there. I think we’re all wired to want to have some kind of family tree – to respect that, and the whole record seems to be about this couple coming to grips with this personally.
The original idea for the album was to make a whole record set in one house and use sampled things form the house to create all the percussion – I thought that would add to the sense of claustrophobia I was trying to express that I felt was one of the great feelings of the pandemic. In the end, I ended up going with real tracked drums (which came out great) but I still kept a lot of household samples in there – there are sounds of windows opening, doors closing, feet walking in leaves, pots and pans etc.
There’s even a song about miscarriage? ‘Leaves in Winter’ — How did that come about? Was that important to you?
Yeah … that’s certainly not a traditional rock song topic. This isn’t ‘School’s out for summer’ or ‘She’s my cherry pie’ type songs. But part of the thing with getting older is you absorb from experience and people you know so many more real life experiences that frankly people just don’t talk about. At this stage in life, I’ve seen numerous people I know get … cancer … you know? That’s not something you even think about when you’re 20 and writing music. 100% I think I have way more interesting things to write about at this age than I did when I was 20 and was just walking around with a boner to co-ed parties. Same with ‘Leaves in Winter’ – maybe it a slightly taboo societal topic, but for this couple it’s absolutely a life changing event in the story arc of who they become at the end of the record. It’s the turning point of them discovering something and reconciling through trauma and grief what brings them closer together.
The other thing that comes up a lot on the disc is the image of ‘Leaves’ – several song are mentioned, and even in the album title – what’s that about?
It’s just the main metaphor for the main question the album is asking, that of what important does the genealogical tree play in our lives now – and the ‘leaf’ is a metaphor for that. The leaves follow a life cycle – they fall, they die, they spring again. Same with the couple in the album, there’s rising and falling action with their story through the songs and hopefully ends with “Leaves in Spring” and a feeling of rebirth for them – although I don’t even really know at the end how their story really ends.
And the album ends with a couple songs in 5/4 time, is that new and different for you?
It just kinda happened that way, but I love those songs. This is certainly the first record I’ve done where I think the album finishes maybe stronger than it starts. I do think it sounds kinda modern to merge ‘dance music’ with an odd time signature like 5/4 in ‘Porch Apologies’ – It just sounds off enough but I’m not sure that people will always know why it feels off (but in a good way) – and then when you kick back to 4/4 in places it sounds really interesting to me.
What’s next for you? Will there be a tour, live component?
It’s true that over the past few years playing live has been difficult. I’d finally gotten the band in full swing when the pandemic happened and then things sort of fell part. Living in a city like the DC-region – people often move here for short periods of time – so we had a drummer move back to Michigan. We also had a personal tragedy with our wonderful young bass player.
I am very hopeful that we’re starting to put a touring band back together and will be able to get out and support this disc. I do miss the stage, and interacting with people live.
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End of Interview