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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

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. 


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: BODEGA

Photo By Mert Gafuroglu

Photo By Mert Gafuroglu

Brooklyn's BODEGA combines the thoughtfulness and wit of lead songwriters Ben Hozie and Nikki Belfiglio's lyrics with a cheeky attitude and an array of influences on their full length debut. The album, called Endless Scroll, released via What’s Your Rupture? records last week, and the band has been out on the road for the better part of this year playing songs from the record. 

They're currently overseas on a UK and European tour, but Ben Hozie recently took some time to chat with us about his songwriting approach, their touring essentials, their favorite fellow Brooklyn bands and more. 

 


Congratulations on having your debut album out this week! The writing on this record has such an authentic and thoughtful quality to it-- is it sometimes difficult to get into that space when you’re in the writing process? If so, how do you get around that challenge? 

It is difficult to get into the proper headspace to create — the most important thing is to stay away from the internet to avoid distraction. I am old school - I write best with pen, paper, and acoustic guitar.

As far as the inspiration behind the songs, you obviously have some pop culture references, like with “Jack in Titanic.” Did you find yourselves drawing inspiration from other mediums like film or TV on other songs? 

I’m also a filmmaker so I am always thinking about cinema. When it comes to music, you listen with your eyes and see with your ears.

How was it working with Austin Brown as the producer, and what was the recording process like? 

Austin Brown is a very hands-off producer. He set up an 8 track tape machine (the same one Parquet Courts recorded Light Up Gold on) in their practice space and had us play all of the songs live. We did the whole record in four days. I kept wanting to embellish the arrangements but he was very adamant about keeping the recording as simple and honest as possible. I am a big fan of his band —- I became a peacock internally to show off the songs.

I love the 360/VR video you put out for “How Did This Happen !?” Who came up with the idea, and do you have any plans for more VR videos in the future? 

The VR vid was Nikki’s idea. We wanted to fake a live show recording which would mock the trope of super hype ‘live’ videos. Honestly, I’m not crazy about virtual reality. I find it very limiting - the art of cinema is ‘framing’ and ‘cutting.’ VR removes human agency from the medium. It was a fun experiment but i’d be surprised if we did it again anytime soon.

I caught your recent set in Chicago at The Empty Bottle and you guys all had such a fun and energetic stage presence. Who inspires you as a performer?

I have a lot of heroes of the stage (ones you might not suspect from our music) : Bruce Springsteen, Perry Farrell, Public Enemy, and the Grateful Dead. 

Speaking of playing live, you’ve toured a ton this year; from playing SXSW to traveling to the UK and Europe. What have been some of your favorite shows or highlights of tour? 

Some of our best shows have happened in unlikely places. We played at a library in Birkenhead and a batting cage in Philadelphia. Every show is different——- we try to make every show unique. 

When you’re traveling, what are some of your favorite ways to stay entertained on the road? Any podcast or album recommendations?

Good books are the best. We are pretty obsessed with the 33 and 1/3 book series. I’m trying to read them all. Right now i’m going back and forth between ‘Trouble Boys: The Story of the Replacements’ and ‘Bubliminal’ by Leonard Mlodinow. 

What are your go-to snacks or drinks that you’d pick up at a bodega? 

The two essential liquids : coffee and beer.

Who are some of your favorite bands fellow Brooklyn bands that you think everyone should check out? 

Milk Dick, Parlor Walls, GUSTAF, Eaters, Pill, Public Practice, Operator Music Band, Straw Pipes, Shilpa Ray, and The Consumables.


Keep up with BODEGA on Instagram + Facebook, and listen to Endless Scroll in full below.

Catching Up With: Alex Napping

It's been a little over a week since the NYC/Austin-based band Alex Napping released their sophomore album, Mise En Place, full of honest narratives driven by grooving melodic riffs and lead singer Alex Cohen's ethereal vocals. Since the May 5th release, the quartet have been on the road in support of the new songs, playing album release shows in both of their base cities, NYC and Austin, as well as a handful of new cities. Prior to the tour kickoff, the leading lady of Alex Napping caught up with ANCHR to chat about the process behind the album, from her songwriting to recording, as well as some of her influences and favorite artists. Before the tour hits Chicago's Subterranean this Saturday night, check out these 5 things we learned while catching up with Alex Cohen. 

Photo by HELMUT StudioAlex Napping is: Alex Cohen, Adrian Sebastian Haynes, Tomás Garcia-olano, and Andrew Stevens. 

Photo by HELMUT Studio

Alex Napping is: Alex Cohen, Adrian Sebastian Haynes, Tomás Garcia-olano, and Andrew Stevens. 


The Album Was Recorded More Than A Year Before The Release

While chatting with Cohen the day before Mise En Place's release, Cohen describes her excitement to finally release the album, saying, "We’ve had this record finished since March of 2016. So it’s been a while coming. I’m very happy to finally be putting it out into the world."

Cohen also reveals the group divided the recording into several different blocks, the first session going all the way back to 2015. Telling the tale of their recording process, Cohen begins, "We recorded at a studio in Austin called Cacophony Recorders, with Erik Wofford, who is the owner of the studio. He produced the record. We did a couple of one-off singles about a year before going in to make this record, just to see if he was someone we wanted to make a whole record with. We made these two songs, “Trembles Part I” and “Trembles Part II,” and just loved working with him and loved his space. [We] decided that when we were ready to do our full length, we’d do it with him."  As far as the span of different recording sessions, she says, "We recorded the record in three chunks. There were four days in November 2015, two days in December, and then four more days in January of 2016, where we tracked the record. And we just kind of broke it up based on like who needed to be there." Cohen continues on to say that "Wife and Kidz" and "Heart Swells 2.0" have minimal bass and drums, so they were able to knock those out in the two days in December 2015. 

There's a New Sense of Maturity In The New Album

Discussing the difference from debut album to the sophomore record, Cohen muses, "I like to think that the themes have matured as I’ve grown older, and kind of have a different perspective on conflict." She continues to confess she actually went back to listen to their first record shortly before Mise En Place's release, revealing, "It was really weird. It wasn’t painful. I was like 'I think this still holds up'...But it definitely sounds like a young record,  and a lot of the feelings that I had that felt so important and grand definitely have a naivety to [them]."

Because of how personal Cohen gets with her songwriting, she says her age definitely plays a factor in the song themes. Elaborating, Cohen says, "I was 21 when I wrote those songs [on the first album], versus being 23, 24 when I wrote this record. I feel like those first few years out of college, being a real adult are pretty big. A lot of stuff happens. A lot of this record is kind of like dealing with being an adult and figuring out how to realistically handle situations. Where things that felt like the end of the world when I was like 20, you’re just like 'this is part of life'. Just kind of figuring out how it all fits into life, like balance and security. Like what do those even mean?" 

Cohen says the themes of her songs aren't the only difference this time around, revealing that her and the band built up the arrangements while they were in the studio this time. "It was kind of fun because we’ve never really gotten to do that as a band before. 'Wife and Kidz' had the melody and that kind of delayed bass part, but other than that we just came up with a bunch of stuff in the studio. It's kind of like the most fun part about the studio....When you have a structure for a song, but figuring out how you want to fill in the spaces. I enjoy working on the fly like that. I think that a lot of really cool, creative things happen when you’re locking yourself in a studio setting for like 10 hours a day," she continued. 

A lot of this record is kind of like dealing with being an adult and figuring out how to realistically handle situations. Where things that felt like the end of the world when I was like 20, you’re just like ‘this is part of life.’
— Alex Cohen on her maturing songwriting

Land Of Talk and Chairlift Acted As Influences

Being able to freely create and collaborate in the studio also meant that Cohen and her bandmates were able to soak up influence from other bands during the recording and writing process. "When I was writing I was going through a really big Land Of Talk phase. They’re the best. It’s really cool because they hadn’t put a record out since 2012, and they have a record coming out in June for the first time in years. But I was listening to a lot of their music, and I think that that definitely comes through in my songwriting...and even guitar chords and voicing, Cohen says. Continuing, she reveals, "Actually what’s funny is in 'Temperamental Bed', I play in an alternate guitar tuning, and that tuning I learned from looking up tabs from a Land Of Talk song. It’s one of my favorite tuning styles, but I wouldn’t have found it if I hadn’t been like 'How do I play this song that I love so much?'" 

Cohen credits another band for inspiring her during their time in the studio, saying, "Right as I was going into the studio, I started listening to a lot of Chairlift. I don’t think [they] musically influenced this record, but I do just really love the way that Caroline Polachek from Chairlift sings and how she uses her voice. How she can be really playful with it. I think aspects of that, I was interested in incorporating into some of the vocal performances on the record. I think that will be way more apparent on the next one." 

Each Song Acts as a Snapshot of a Moment 

The songs on Mise En Place were recorded a while before the release, but Cohen still find them to be accurate portrayals of herself. Talking more about the relevance of these songs as they age, Cohen says, "I think they’re still relevant in that they’re accurate portrayals of how I felt in specific moments in the year that I wrote those songs. That’s what a lot of them are. I wrote them as certain things were happening..These cool little snapshots of exactly how I was feeling when something happened."

On the contrary to that point, Cohen continues, "At the same time I feel really far removed from that time in my life. It’s weird because it’s like 'Oh, I remember feeling that way, but it feels like a lifetime ago.' Even by the time we were in the studio, I had written a lot of the songs six months to a year prior to going into the studio. I was starting to feel quite distanced from the subject matter."

Although Cohen feels distance from the song subjects, she's still really excited to play them all on tour. She talks more about the live show, revealing which new song she's most excited to play live. "We’ve actually just worked out how to play 'Wife and Kidz' live and we’ll be unveiling that for the first time live, and I’m actually really excited about that, cause I’m just gonna sing on it. I’m not gonna play guitar or any instrument, which I love doing 'cause it’s just nice to have moments where I just get to focus on only doing one thing. I think that we’ve worked up a pretty cool version of it, all things considered and our gear on stage."

As far as the cities they're most excited to hit up? "I’m always excited about New York shows. I actually live in New York now. it’s kind of like a second hometown. We’re playing some places in the northeast like Providence, RI and Bloomfield, CT. I’ve never really been to some of those small town northeaster states before. Our midwest shows in Chicago and Minneapolis because those are just really cool cities. I have friends there that I’m excited to see, and both of those shows have really awesome line ups," Cohen says.

Other Artists That Alex Is Into Include...

It's always great to find out who your favorite new bands are listening to, which keeps your music library from getting stale, so naturally we asked Alex what some of her current favorites are. Besides Chairlift and Land Of Talk, Cohen mentions a couple other badass female artists that have been in frequent rotation on her playlist. "I'm really in love with the Tei Shi album that came out a month ago. She’s so good and so cool,  and I just think that that’s one of the best like, kind of weird pop records of the year," she says.

"Half Waif put out a record this year, which I love. I saw them play live for the first time during South By [South West], which was incredible. Nandi, who fronts that project, is amazing. She also plays with Pinegrove, but I really love the record that she put out this year," Cohen added.


Tickets for Alex Napping's show at The Subterranean this Saturday, May 20, start at $10. Snag your ticket here, and listen to their new album below. 

A Chat With: Blonder

We recently chatted with Constantine Anastasakis, the man behind the new Brooklyn based act Blonder. Mixing 80's inspired synths and sticky melodies, Blonder have created an irresistible sound that's perfect for driving with the windows down on a sunny day. Speaking of driving, Blonder will be out on the road next month trying out their live show on new crowds, and they've also got a debut EP on the cusp of release. Prior to the tour, we talked to Constantine about his start in music, how an ex-girlfriend inspired his band name, his collaborative songwriting methods, the best spots to eat in NYC, and more. Get to know Blonder now...


ANCHR Magazine: What inspired you to pick up an instrument and start writing songs?

Constantine: Well, the very first thing was this guy who lived on my block who I always thought was really cool when I was a kid. He used to skateboard, and he was into indie music. He used to skate with a bunch of guys from Supreme in the early 90's. He’s kind of like this cool, older figure. He ended up being a school teacher, and he had like a small skate company that he ran out of his basement. He had a bunch of gear and stuff. He showed me some rock’n’roll and then some jazz. I was more into nerdy music when I was younger, like jazz.

AM: Do you have any musical influences, like other acts that inspired you to keep creating music yourself?

Constantine: I feel like I have really weird listening habits with music. I get into like different time periods way later. Like I only really got into the Strokes and Interpol and that stuff like literally four years ago. Like so long after it happened. I just wasn’t even in that mindset when it was going on in 2000. I was pretty young too so I didn’t really get it. I guess, my friend Aaron Maine from Porches, we’ve been friends for the last 5 or 6 years. We just kind of remained consistent friends, like hanging out a few times a week when he wasn’t on tour. We were just talking the other night about how crazy it was that we’re still friends after so much has changed around us. His band had always been pretty inspiring to me.

AM: I was actually going to ask about your residency that you had with Aaron, alongside Dev Hynes too. How did that opportunity come up, and how was the experience?

Constantine: The residency was also along Frankie Cosmos as well. It was the three of them. Basically, I had been working on a record for like a really long time, but didn’t even have an Instagram account, or a Twitter. I actually didn’t even have a band name. It was pretty crazy, I actually mixed and mastered my entire album without a band name. It was really nuts, but I had been working on something for a really long time, and I would play it for Aaron and Greta [Frankie Cosmos], and even Dev sometimes. I see him less, but I still see him a bunch, and they were just always super supportive. Like “you have to release this, this is so sick.” I finally figured out what I wanted it to be, then I got a band together. I wanted to play some shows to bring attention to the band, and I said hey, I’m gonna play this residency at Elvis, do you guys wanna play? They were like “definitely!” It’s pretty much just on a super friend-level. Greta actually guested with me that night on my song “Lean.” It was so beautiful. We rehearsed a harmony for it.

AM: So when did you finally settle on the name Blonder then?

Constantine: I was actually dating a girl and the relationship was falling apart, as the story goes. We were getting older, and we’d known each other since childhood. There was a lot of pressure to have it be like the end all, be all type of relationship. It kind of just wasn’t working anymore. Anyway, while we were breaking up, we were still kind of seeing each other every once in awhile. It was not that much of a clean break. My whole record is kind of about that time in my life, and the romance and breakup. Basically all the songs were about this one relationship, and this girl knew that I didn’t have a band name. She called me really late one night and she was like ‘I’m with my friends, and I think you need to name your band ‘Blonder’.” I think her and her friends were having a few drinks, and she’s blonde, I feel like it was maybe some kind of joke. I just felt like the record was kind of about her and she’s an important person in my life, but it was super apt with the whole clubby, 80's sound of the record too.

AM: So it sounds like you have the whole album done then? Any plans to release it this year?

Constantine: I’m technically in the middle of my roll out. I recorded 10 songs at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys. And then cut 5 of them because I wanted the EP to be super like, every song was really, really good. I go back and forth with my record label a lot trying to figure out what the best way to go about it is. It’s kind of hectic sometimes. The next song is supposed to come out in April.

AM: So definitely new music soon then?

Constantine: Definitely, yes!

AM: So what is your songwriting process like then?

Constantine: The way I work is pretty...I would say a little collage-y. I’ll sit on a song and I’m not afraid to change a song way after the point of it being written. I also like to work with songwriters. I like to have sessions with people and work on music, like trading ideas. Rather than staying in my room alone. Some people are really amazing at making stuff alone. I found that it winds up being really counterproductive to do it all myself, so I would work with a bunch of people. I wrote a bunch of songs on the record with Aaron [Maine].  I also wrote a bunch of songs with some dudes out in California that I’m friends with, that kind of do that type of thing for a living. They have publishing deals and they basically write songs all day. I was kind of on the left-leaning indie side of it cause they’re my friends and we weren’t ever doing it for more than “let’s make some music together.”

AM: So talking more about your live show, I know you’re doing some dates in April. Is that your first tour with Blonder?

Constantine: Yeah, it’s the first tour for Blonder. There’s a 3 day stint with WET, and then an 8 day run with Methyl Ethel.

AM: Are there any cities you’re particularly excited for?

Constantine: Honestly, all of the dates are really cool. I’m really excited that we’re doing 7th Street in Minneapolis and The Empty Bottle in Chicago. We’re playing in Toronto. Randomly, a couple people in Toronto have hit me up like “I really like your music,” so I think it will be really cool to play there. Then the rest of the Methyl thing is basically Boston, DC, and Philly, so back home-ish.

AM: What are some of your favorite spots in Brooklyn for music, or just for going out? Any recommendations?

Constantine: Yeah, I usually I tend to hang out in Manhattan more because that’s where a lot of my friends are basically. I just kind of live in Brooklyn. My girlfriend lives like 5 blocks away from me in Brooklyn, so I’ll see her there, and everyone else is basically in the city. I’ve been eating this crazy, super cheap Chinese food for dinner called Spicy Village, it’s in Chinatown and it’s crazy good. Spots in New York, there are a few that are kind of always going to be there. Like that bar Sophie’s in East Village. That’s a good spot to just go an have a drink, it’s unpretentious and easy. I also go to this restaurant called The Smile a lot because my guitarist is the manager there. So I like to go there, they have good drinks and really good food and I basically know every single person that works there.

AM: So talking more about the tour again, how would you describe the live show? I’m sure you’re rehearsing now, so are there any songs you’re particularly excited to test out on the road?

Constantine: Yeah, we’ve been rehearsing. We were just in there til really late last night and it’s sounding amazing. I’m really excited. There’s this song that I don’t think is even going to come out on the EP. It was a b-side from the recordings and we last minute wanted to throw that one in. So we’re playing a 7 song set. It’s at like 30 minutes flat. It’s called “Just Because”, and it’s the first song that we open the set with, and it just feels really good. It feels really like punky, and wirey. They’re all feeling really amazing. We’re gonna close with “Lean” every night because that’s everyone’s favorite song right now.

AM: Cool! So last question, are there any other newer bands that you’re really into at the moment?

Constantine:I have a Spotify playlist, called $5 Playlist, which is actually the name of my EP. I kind of update it every once 2-3 weeks with songs that I’m super into. I’m trying to think of what might be a new band that I’m genuinely listening to. Let’s do two songs...one, the newest Methyl Ethyl single, I actually really love. You know, it’s crazy because I feel like bands are pressured to like other bands because they’re going on tour with them. They released this song and I was like oh my god, and I listened to it on my own free will. It’s amazing. It’s got a French title, it’s like the something something of sorcery in French. It’s so amazing, and then I really got obsessed with this one song called “The Woman That Loves You” by Japanese Breakfast. It’s such a great song, it’s off their record that came out last year. There’s that. Alex G just dropped two new songs today, I just listened to those before this interview and they’re really beautiful. Also Lorde! I’m such a huge Lorde fan. I thought Heroine was just the smartest pop record.

Blonder's $5 Playlist


Make sure you go check out Blonder's set on tour with Methyl Ethyl (dates below), and follow up with all other news on Blonder's Facebook page.