Get To Know: The Pinkerton Raid

Last week, I chatted with Jesse James DeConto of the Durham, NC indie rock band The Pinkerton Raid, while they stopped in Chicago during a short Midwest tour. We're only a few months into the year, but it's already been a busy one for The Pinkerton Raid, who released their third studio album called Tolerance Ends, Love Begins on February 7th. While catching up with Jesse, I found out the highlights since the record's release, which classic rock band he used to cover with his family, the best spots in North Carolina for live music, and much more. Tune in and get to know The Pinkerton Raid now...

The DeConto siblings of The Pinkerton Raid

Daytrotter and Dayton have been tour highlights

Right before our chat, Jesse and the band had been out in Davenport, IA, recording a session with our friends at Daytrotter. Jesse mentioned the session went really well, adding, "It was great. It’s something that we’ve been wanting to do for a while, so I was really excited. I’m looking forward to hearing the mix when it comes back!" 

As far as other highlights, Jesse brought up an epic night in Dayton, OH.  "We had a great time the other night in Dayton. There’s a place called South Park Tavern. They have this weekly open mic night, and the guys who kind of curate that, they met up just going there to play their own stuff, and eventually formed a band called Old News....Based on just jamming with each other at this open mic. So they’ve been doing that for years, and now they’ve built this great community of people coming out weekly to hear what’s going on. So, they basically booked us as a featured artist for what’s normally an open mic night, and it was just fantastic. The people were really so hospitable and we sold a ton of records and t-shirts. Just a lot more than on your average show, so that’s always encouraging," Jesse recalled. 

While Dayton might have been one of the most special shows this tour, it seems like the band have genuinely enjoyed the whole tour. "Last night we got out and played with our friends, The Sharrows. We played with them on our first Midwestern tour four years ago. One of the guys in that band has this old farmhouse about half hour outside of Madison. We crashed with him when we played that show back then. They’ve got a studio out in the barn, and it’s always good to see them. He and his cousin, Phil Sharrow, whose last name is the name of the band, they’ve become friends and we always have a good time with them. It’s been fun hanging out with friends," Jesse added. 

Jesse's dad was performing Simon and Garfunkel when his mom went into labor

A lot of musicians come from musical families, but few have this exciting of a birth story..."We kind of grew up watching our dad play. He actually supported my mom and me when I was just a baby," Jesse says, starting the story. "On the night I was born, he was playing at a bar in Somerville, Massachusetts. He was in the middle of playing Simon and Garfunkel "Cecilia,” and the bartender got a call and told the waitress. So she comes up and kind of whispered to him while he’s playing and singing, you know, that my mom had gone to the hospital...So he stands up and knocks the microphone over and the whole bar fills with feedback. He picks it up and says 'I gotta go, my wife is having a baby,'" he continued. 

The whole family is musical, and used to play in cover bands together

While it's clear music has been instilled in the DeConto family blood since birth, Jesse revealed he hadn't always been into writing original music. Talking about his start with playing music, he says, "I came home from college after my freshman year, and [my dad] and my other brother were playing a lot together. My younger brother. They were playing a lot of Led Zeppelin and Beatles stuff from the 60’s and 70’s. My brother was learning guitar. Nobody was playing bass. So I picked up bass. I had been singing for quite a while and touring with that in high school and college, but I kind of picked up that bass the summer after my freshman year of college. Started playing bass and played with my family. My uncle played drums so we had a full band. Mainly just playing those cover songs, and we’d just play for weddings or parties."

While he enjoyed playing other people's music, he also admits that it was challenging at times. "[Zeppelin] stuff is really intense. I was doing a lot of the singing. I really had to work at it. So I felt like I’d enjoy it more if I was actually writing my own songs. And so, that’s kind of when it started. I was probably 23...then it just went from there." Jesse also talks about how pretty much the whole family ended up following him and his daughters from New Hampshire to North Carolina, which is where they formed their first original band. Eventually, The Pinkerton Raid formed, and the rest is history...

Jesse's job as a crime reporter had an impact on the third record

As the story goes, Jesse began writing down lyrics for the third album while he was working as a crime reporter. When I asked about some of most intense stories he covered, Jesse says, "There are a lot of intense stories. The student body president of UNC Chapel Hill in the area where I was working, got murdered. It was like a robbery, they kidnapped her and took her to an ATM to get money out, and then ended up shooting her. Eve Carson. That was a really rough story to cover," he recalled. "Then I covered a trial of a young kid, a teenager, he'd graduated. I think he was 18 or 19, but he went back to his high school in Orange County, NC, and shot up the building. Nobody died, but a couple people got injured. There’s a couple of stories like that. Another guy drove an SUV into the campus at UNC Chapel Hill and injured a bunch of people. So you know, it’s just like, people sort of losing touch with reality and doing some really harmful stuff to other people. When you cover those trials, you get a window into human psychology. It can get pretty intense," Jesse continued. 

As far as how much those stories affected the album, Jesse says, "It’s interesting. I don’t know that it inspired the album, so much as that I was going through my own stuff personally, and kind of like watching other people deal with the worst stuff they might have to deal with in their entire lives. That just kind of got me thinking about what was going on for myself. The album title actually comes from this commute that I would have to do, going up there to cover these cases at the courthouse. There’s a traffic sign that says 'Tolerence Ends,' and it just means that truckers are supposed to get off the back roads and drive on the highway, but I found it so provocative, that language. I just started thinking about how it applied to my own life." 

They come from a budding music community 

"Our area is really great, we have a really great scene," Jesse says, mentioning some of their favorite local acts include The Old Ceremony, Mount Moriah, His Golden Messenger, The Dead Tongues, Brett Harris, and Skylar Gudasz. (Their producer for the third record, Mark Simonsen, also plays in The Dead Tounges.)

Although their list of local recommendations already seems endless, Jesse added, "People probably know about Sylvan Esso, they’re a pretty big deal. There’s a lot of connection with Bon Iver and some of his old friends...like Phil and Brad Cook. He formed Megafaun. They’re involved now with His Golden Messenger. So there’s kind of  a big community around those guys." 

As far as local venues, Jesse also mentions a fair share. Elaborating on the best places to play, he says, "We play at Motorco a lot in Durham, so that’s been kind of our home venue. There’s a lot of good ones. We love the Pinhook. Cat’s Cradle, of course, in Carrborro. That’s probably the best known. That’s 20 minutes away, and they opened a back room with a smaller space a couple years ago. Which has been really good because The Cat’s Cradle main room is 700-800 capacity, which most bands can’t fill. The backroom is good for us locals to play in."  Jesse also shouts out Local 506, The Station, The Cave, and The ArtsCenter, to name a few, confirming that there's lots of awesome venues in their area. 

---

It might be a while until The Pinkerton Raid make their way back to the Midwest, but if you're in North Carolina, it sounds like the band have plenty of gigs lined up! While talking about what's next for the band this year, Jesse mentions, "We’ve got some festival stuff we’re starting to line up. We’re gonna open up this photography festival called Eyes on Main Street in Wilson, which is like an hour east of where we live. We always like to be involved in something that’s celebrating another art form. We've played the past 5 years at a festival called Wild Goose, which is in western North Carolina, and that’s always a highlight. We love that and we end up making really cool connections. A couple of the places we’re stopping on this tour are because of people that we’ve met at this festival. So that’s always good."  He also mentioned Shakori Hills Grass Roots Music Festival, saying "It’s really well-curated and draws a lot of great bands from all over the country. They put it on twice a year. It’s kind of one of the highlights of the central North Carolina scene. That will be our first time doing that." Make sure you stay in the loop by signing up for the band's mailing list here. 

In the meantime, you can listen to Tolerance Ends, Love Begins below, or buy a physical copy here. 

Get to Know: Joe Bordenaro

After his support slot last week for the Orwells at the legendary Metro, we chatted with the Chicago singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joe Bordenaro, who is probably best known for playing around town with his band The Late Bloomers. Joe and his band recently tested out some new songs at The Virgin Hotel, and they've got a show at Schuba's coming up next month with The Evening Attraction that you don't want to miss! Before that show, find out five things you need to know about Joe, including how he got his start in music, what we can expect from his album, and which local band he thinks everyone needs to look out for (we'll give you a hint...it's one that we've interviewed). 

He started playing music on a forgotten drum set

Talking about the first time he ever picked up an instrument, Joe says, "One of my parents’ friends left a drum set at my house when I was really little. I just started playing it, that was pretty much the first time I remember getting into playing an instrument. I think that happened when I was like 7 or 8."

From there, Joe recalls venturing into songwriting when he was in high school. "I was in a band, but I was playing drums. Then that band ended up ending and I started writing my own songs," he continued. 

He plans on releasing new music for the first time since 2015

Last month, Joe and The Late Bloomers performed at The Virgin Hotel with American Grizzly and Lucille Furs. Before playing some of his new material at that show, Joe mentioned the next song was new, but joked that all of his songs were probably "new" to this particular crowd. 

Elaborating on the new songs, Joe says, "We just started working on recording for an album. The next thing we put out is gonna be a [full length] album." As far as how many songs the record will be, that's still up in the air, but Joe continued to say, "I just have a lot of music since the last thing I put out was in 2015. I’ve been writing the whole time."  Talking more about his songwriting process, Joe adds, "It’s pretty random. Usually I’ll just listen to a lot of music and learn how they structure it. [With] songs I like, I’ll pay attention to how they’re structured and the keys, and all that, and then try to learn from that." Joe also says he's worked on writing longer songs, but the theme still tends to come back to love. "I write a lot about love. I tend to not have a set theme before I write. I’ll think of a line and base it off that. It’s really like I come up with the theme after the lyrics are written," Joe revealed. 

His influences include Electric Light Orchestra and Fleetwood Mac

Joe says he can pinpoint Fleetwood Mac and Electric Light Orchestra as influences, but he also mentions a couple of other legends while talking about what he listens to. "I listen to Jackson Brown, Tom Petty...I really listen to Chicago bands and Tom Petty. And Electric Light Orchestra. I’ve been getting into the Eagles a lot. I love them," Joe says. 

His love for ELO also includes a love for their production style. At the moment, Joe is working on the record as his own producer, but as far as producers he admires, he says, "I’m super into Jeff Lynne, and 70’s super dry drums," emphasizing he's really into the dry drums sound. He's learned to record his own music through trial and error, but Joe says his advice to other musicians would be to not overthink. "I tend to overthink a lot when it comes to making music. You just gotta do it and it will flesh itself out. I spend half the time thinking about how I want it to go instead of doing it and seeing how it goes. Don’t overthink, just do it," he added. 

A deli platter is the way to his heart

Earlier this year, Joe played Schubas with Wand as part of Tomorrow Never Knows Festival. Talking more about the TNK experience, Joe says, "Yeah, that was the first 'festival' we played. It was really cool, the other bands that were playing. Wand was like, nuts. It’s all people who play with Ty Segall, and they had crazy fuzz pedals. As far as show experiences, every time we’ve played Schubas it’s been amazing, and they’re really nice to us." 

So while Joe loves Schubas, he also shouted out Metro and Chop Shop, both of which he's played in support of The Orwells. "We opened for the Orwells when they played at Chop Shop. That was like the other big show...these are the two biggest we've played. Chop Shop is super nice, they gave us a deli platter," he recalled. There you have it...an easy way to win over a band: a deli platter. 

The local band he thinks you should look out for is....

While we were on the subject of the best local venues, I asked Joe about his favorite local bands, and noticed that he had a Post Animal button on his jacket. "Oh, I love Post Animal. They’re my favorite band. I mean, I love all the bands we’re playing with tonight. But I think everyone needs to look out for Post Animal because they’re like the best musicians," Joe said.

Joe also recommends Max and The Mild Ones, saying "[Max is] a really, really good songwriter. Everyone should listen to him!" When he's not playing with his own band, Joe also plays with The Max and The Mild Ones. 

---

In addition to the upcoming show at Schubas with The Evening Attraction, it's rumored that Joe Bordenaro will be performing at a Sofar Sounds show in April as well. Grab your tickets to the Treehouse Studio sponsored Schubas show here for only $5, and keep up with everything else new with Joe on his Facebook page. Keep your eyes (and ears) out for new music before the end of the year, and a tour to follow!

 

A Chat With: Molly Burch

Austin-based (via Los Angeles) singer songwriter Molly Burch has been out on the road this past month, in support of her debut album Please Be Mine. Recorded live in just one day, the album really showcases Molly's retro-inspired, alluring vocals.  Prior to her show at The Empty Bottle this Thursday with Tim Darcy, we chatted with Molly about everything from her recording process to playing SXSW to her thoughts on The Backstreet Boys. Get to know all that and more in our chat with Molly Burch...

Photo Credit: Dailey Toliver

---

ANCHR Magazine: Congratulations on releasing your debut album Please Be Mine last month! How does it feel to have your first album out into the world, and what have been some highlights since the release?

Molly Burch: Thank you so much! It feels like a dream come true. Some of the highlights have been touring with my band and having a record release show in both my hometown of Austin and also my label's home, Brooklyn.

Please Be Mine Album Artwork

AM: Where did you pull influence from for your songwriting on the record?

MB: My main influence has always been women vocalists. I've been singing all my life and when I started to write songs I would focus on the voice first above all else. Billie Holiday, Nancy Sinatra, Peggy Lee are all women I've been listening to since I was a kid. 

AM: Do you think that moving from LA to Austin had an effect on your writing and your sound?

MB: I think the act of moving to a new place and having the independence and solitary time had a big impact on my songwriting. 

AM: As far as recording, I know you recorded a lot of your album in a live setting in one day. What were some of the biggest challenges with recording in such a high-pressure scenario?

MB: I don't recall any challenges. It was a pretty simple and relaxed process. I wanted the recordings to reflect how we sounded live and my and I felt comfortable with the songs enough to track live. It was a really fun and relaxed day!

AM: I recently talked to Tim Darcy and he mentioned the tour has been going great. What have been some of your favorite shows and cities to play in while touring with Tim?

MB: Are you trying to make me blush? Ha! I adore him and his band. We're having such a great time. Every city has been super wonderful. I think we all really enjoyed playing D.C. 

AM: What’s your favorite way to stay entertained on the long drives during tour? Any new music, podcast, or book recommendations?

MB: We've been listening to a lot of music. To name a few, Hand Habits, John Andrew & The Yawns, lots of jazz, a couple podcasts here and there. This leg of tour I brought to read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield and "The Girls" by Emma Cline. Also, my dear planner will keep my mind occupied. Couldn't live without my planner.

AM: You just played SXSW last week.  As an Austin resident, what are some of your tips for first time SXSW festival goers?

MB: Yes, we just played SXSW. Not sure I have any tips! Haha. As a performer it can be extremely overwhelming on the brain. I like to rest us much as possible between shows and not over do it. It is hard to stay sane with all of the stimulation. 

AM: On the same subject of SXSW, what are some of your other favorite bands that played the festival this year?

MB: Tim Darcy! WAND, Living Hour, Jay Som, Jess Williamson, Hand Habits and Mega Bog. Also, saw Kevin Morby play an acoustic set and was very happy about that!

AM: Since your bio mentions that you grew up with Hollywood musicals, what is your all-time favorite musical?

MB: Gypsy!

AM: So, this is kind of cheesy, but since your album is called Please Be Mine, I thought it might be cool to do a lightning round of “Please Be Mine or Decline” of some kind of polarizing things to get to know you better. 

MB: So fun! Would be happy to.

AM: Coffee?

MB: BE MINE

AM: Scary movies?

MB: DECLINE

AM: Snowy days?

MB: BE MINE

AM: Nutella?

MB:DECLINE

AM: Spicy food?

MB: BE MINE

AM: Country music?

MB: BE MINE

AM: Pineapple on pizza?

MB: BE MINE

AM: The Backstreet Boys?

MB: DECLINE

AM: Cilantro?

MB: BE MINE 

AM: Rom Coms?

MB: BE MINE

---

Make sure you grab a copy of the beautiful album Please Be Mine here. If you're in Chicago, you have two chances to see Molly in the upcoming weeks. She'll be playing with the equally awesome Jude Shuma and Tim Darcy this Thursday at the The Empty Bottle. Grab tickets, starting at just $10, here. You can also see her at Schubas on April 7th! 

A Chat With: Tim Darcy

Last week, we chatted with the Montreal based singer-songwriter Tim Darcy, who has just released his debut solo album in February. After previously releasing two albums with his band Ought, Tim is currently on tour in support of his new album, called Saturday Night. Tim took some time to chat with us prior to his show in Richmond, Virginia. Before the tour stops at The Empty Bottle on March 23rd, get to know Tim Darcy as we chat about his departure towards solo music, his nomadic lifestyle, his favorite poets, SXSW, and more! 

Photo Credit: Shawn Brackbill

---

ANCHR Magazine: Your debut solo album just got released last month. First of all, congrats! Second, how has the response and reception been?

Tim Darcy: It’s been great. I’m really stoked about it. It’s really amazing to me still...some of these songs I’ve been carrying with me for quite a while. The record’s pretty different from Ought. All the way up to the friends I made it with, to [Jagjaguwar] wanting to put it out, and then now hearing from people who really like the record has been really special and awesome.

AM: So what are some of the main differences between working now on your solo music and being in your band Ought?

TD: In the band we do everything collaboratively.  Pretty much all the songs come out of long jams that we do together. Writing solo is utterly different, and it’s just me composing alone. There’s a lot more freedom in that to sort of follow a really intimate moment. Also freedom to play directly to my influences. I had a really great opportunity making this record, working really closely with two friends who produced the record. To experiment and sort of follow each moment as far down the rabbit hole as we wanted to go. So those were some of the differences.

AM: You just mentioned that you had the freedom now to follow your influences, so who would you consider your influences?

TD: The year leading up to making this record, the most immediate stuff, I was listening to pretty exclusively folk and ambient music. So that was kind of interesting. I was listening to lots of ambient music in the van, and that was an interesting moment to feel those come out on the two instrumental pieces on the record, which isn’t something I had prior to this. I’d been writing solo music for a long time, pretty much since I got my first guitar. I never had done ambient stuff. [My] influences really pull from a lot of different areas. I love...when I was first starting out, I was into really kind of big names in folk stuff, like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell...As time goes on I love other artists who are very lyrical, but kind of more adventurous with their sonic pallet.

AM: Nice, so then talking a little more about the tour that you’re on with the record, have there been any highlights, like favorite shows that you’ve played or maybe something that you got to see while you’re in a city for the first time?

TD: Totally, last night was actually amazing. That was one of my favorite shows in DC. This great venue, Black Cat. It was really just a great show. I’m out with this three piece, two good friends, and great musicians.. Charlotte, who plays on the record, is drumming, and then a friend Rachel is playing bass and viola. So she’s doing like the guitar stuff on the record on viola. It works really awesome live. Part of what’s been awesome is we had a few weeks in Toronto to kind of put the show together, but even when we first had those release shows...We had shows in New York and Toronto then we flew to Europe for a week, all those shows were great. Now we’re doing this run down to South By [SXSW] and back, and everything’s really leveling out and clicking...great musical chemistry. It’s partly because of that and partly because the crowd was awesome [last night], it was really dope. A highlight? Right now I’m loving the fact that I’m in a t-shirt. The first show of this tour was in Montreal and it was like -3 Fahrenheit and we were just freezing our faces off. Then 5 days later and I’m in a t-shirt.

AM: So you just mentioned SXSW, you’re going down there then?

TD: Yeah, so that’s the midway point [of this tour]. We’re actually doing these whole three weeks with this artist Molly Burch. She’s based in Austin so that’s pretty cool.

AM: Are there any other bands showcasing that you’re hoping to see out there?

TD: Yeah, we’re playing like 5 shows so I don’t know how much time there’ll be, but there’s a couple of other friends who are playing. I toured with a band LVL UP. I haven’t seen them since their new record came out, and I really like that record. Our friends Priests are gonna be down there. I gotta look at the sched and see who’s playing. Do you have any hot tips?

AM: There’s so many people...I just interview Alex Lahey last week, she’s really good. She’s from Australia, singer-songwriter...really cool lyrics, relatable lyrics. There’s a couple bands from Chicago playing...Post Animal is really good, NE-HI...Rag’N’Bone Man, he’s from Brighton, England. This is his first time over in the states. Sorry for that tangent of SXSW artists!

TD: No, I’m stoked to have some names to look up!

AM:So are there any other cities that you’re looking forward to on the rest of the tour?

TD: I’m so stoked to go to Savannah, Georgia. I’ve never been. I really feel like I’m gonna really dig it. I’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s an amazing place. I just watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It’s really good, it’s got Kevin Spacey and John Cusack. It’s based on the book, which is based on a true story. The movie is awesome and it just seems like a kind of freaky, southern, cool, mysterious little place. I’m excited to check it out.

AM: Nice, I haven’t been either so that sounds awesome, and I’ll check that movie out too. So while we’re talking about traveling and all that...you were born in Arizona, and you’ve lived in Colorado and New Hampshire. Now you’re based in Montreal, so do you think moving around a lot has kind of influenced your songwriting?

TD: Yeah, I think so. I was actually talking about this with the band last night. We’ve all...3 out of the 4 of us are American so we were talking about having moved around a lot. It’s funny, like also the internet is such a kind of stir-stick. Those things are still really significant, but I feel like I, and so many people, consume so much media and so much art. But in an amazing way, like even you just recommended me an artist who’s from Brighton, who now I’m gonna see in Texas. So the world feels very mobile in a way that I think is really awesome. As far as the southwest influence, my mom really brought a lot of that with us to New Hampshire. That filtered into my consciousness much more strongly, in a really significant way.

AM: What made you settle in Montreal then?

TD: I went to school there, and that’s where I met the guys in Ought. The band got signed, so we stayed there. It is a really great city...it’s cold, but it’s an awesome city and rent is cheap. So that’s been the zone.

AM: I haven’t been, but it’s towards the top of my list. Do you have any recommendations of things to do and good spots for music?

TD: Definitely go in the summer. It’s amazing in the summer. Casa De Popolo is my favorite small venue. There’s always really great stuff happening there. As far as bars and stuff, go to Little Italy and Jean Talon Market. You can get like the best fruit and vegetables and a bottle of wine and go sit in the park. That’s kind of an essential Montreal experience. You can get like a baguette and cheese and it’s legal to drink in most of the parks. It’s so beautiful...go to Park De La Fontaine. You gotta try poutine if you haven’t. 

AM: You’re like a Montreal expert now! So talking more about your songwriting, you’ve been writing poetry since the third grade. Do you have any certain poets or favorite poems that got you into writing?

TD: Totally, I love poetry. It’s such a long standing art for me. I kind of still enjoy it in a really organic way. There’s never been a period in my life where I’ve really like put it down. I definitely would recommend...I really love poetry that sort of has almost like a cosmic depth to it. Where it feels like it’s reflecting on something large, like through little moments. I was describing this in an interview a couple weeks ago and they said that kind of sounds like your whole vibe, and I said I guess you’re right, I’m really into that. So there’s this Polish poet, Wisława Szymborska, check her out. She won the Pulitzer Prize. There’s this poet Charles Simic, who’s Yugoslavian. I really love his stuff. I think a poet who has consistently almost made me come to tears is Emily Dickinson. I think she has a kind of like, the way she writes can be a little dense, but once you get into the flow...you know how when you’re reading a novel, and the first couple of pages, you’re not totally in the flow of the way the person writes. Then you get a chapter in, and you get it down? I think with her poetry, once you get down with it, there’s almost a surrealism about life and the human spirit and stuff.

AM: Very cool. I think the fact that you’re so into poetry makes you a better songwriter. It’s cool how poetry can be so wide ranging as far as the different styles. So last question, any other bands you’re really into at the moment? Anyone you’ve been rocking out to on tour?

TD: We just bumped that band Bitchin’ Bajas from Chicago. That is the best driving music. It’s so good. We’ve been listening to the Molly Burch record, that’s really good. Just such beautiful songs. I guess the most recent thing is the Luke Temple album, the new one. The first couple songs I was like yeah this is cool, then sort of half way through it got super heavy and like, adventurous and deep in fear in a couple of those tracks.

---

Chicago, get your tickets to Tim's show on March 23rd now. In addition to Molly Burch, he's playing with ANCHR Interview Alumni Jude Shuma, so you don't want to miss out! You can see all of Tim's other tour dates here. You can also grab Saturday Night here. 

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. 

Get to Know: Off Bloom

We recently chatted with Mette Mortensen, Alex Flockhart, and Mads Christensen of the Anglo-Danish trio Off Bloom. The three have recently released their new single "Falcon Eye," which seamlessly blends their love of electronic and pop music. The group just wrapped up some tour dates supporting indie-pop group LANY in the UK, and they'll be touring Europe next month with Dua Lipa. During our interview, we chatted about their live show, what's next in terms of their music, their start as a band, and more. Get to know Off Bloom now...

Off Bloom is Mette Mortensen, Alex Flockhart, and Mads Christensen

They met in acting school 

Well, Mads and Mette did. As for Alex and Mette, Alex talks about their start in music, saying, "Mette and I actually met quite a few years ago, we were making music together. We were in a band together, and we quickly found out that we maybe got along better just the two of us, more so than everyone else in the band. So that band kind of broke up and we just kept going. Then Mette and Mads met at an acting school."

Mette picks up the story at that point, adding, "I used to be all about doing acting. We did some different voice and singing stuff. After we finished the course, we went back to making music again." Alex adds, "We had finished up with all the other things we were doing and we had kind of decided that now is actually the time that we’re gonna go for music for real," before saying that their new project was inspired by a mix of influences, including the Glasgow-based LuckyMe crew, 1970s rock from Berlin, and pop music. "We just sort of started writing together and it just fit together, it was so natural. We just started writing loads and loads of songs and then it dawned on us that we were actually a band, so we might as well pursue that," he continued. 

They won't release an album until they're ready

Off Bloom released their debut EP Love To Hate It last year, which has been getting lots of great reception and responses from listeners. The band also say their first release has given them incredible opportunities. "We started off playing our first show at the biggest TV show on Danish television, for music at least. Our guy that we worked with at our label had been to the radio and played the song, and showed the video that was about to come out. And they just fell completely in love with it and wanted us to perform at the show," Mette says. Although they say they were nervous for that performance, Mads says, "It was fucking awesome. It was a really nice step of the way. We’d been preparing all this for such a long time and we knew exactly what we wanted to do, and we have a clear vision of what we want to achieve. So in that sense it was pretty much straight forward." 

Although the first EP went well, the band say they don't want to release an album until the time is right. "There will be a lot of songs coming out at one point. There’s a lot of music and we’re excited to release it all. Whether it’s gonna be an album form, we don’t really know. It doesn’t make sense to release an album until it feels right and like people are actually gonna listen to it. You can say a lot of good things about streaming, but people rarely listen to albums unless you’re really a fully established artist, like Beyonce or something. It needs to be the right time. If we put an album together we want to tell a story. We want people to listen to the full story and not just the first three songs," Alex elaborates. Mette adds, "We have so much new material and probably for like the next few months, it’s gonna come out boom, boom, boom! We want to really get a lot of music out there because we have so much great stuff that we really can’t wait to show people." 

So although we don't have any promises for an album this year, the material is definitely there...make sure you keep your eyes and ears out for new music from Off Bloom soon. 

They have no rules when it comes to writing songs

On the same subject of new music, Off Bloom say they don't like to stick to structure when it comes to creating it. Mads talks about their process saying, "The only rule that we really have is that we always do everything together. Sometimes Alex starts out with something, or sometimes I do and we kind of mix it up. If I’ve made a beat then I will send it to Alex, and then Alex will send it back and forth. Mette will listen. Sometimes we make it on the piano. It depends on the mood, but the only real constant thing in our process is that we go into the room being honest with the energy that’s in the room. Then we try and do whatever feels right and feels good, what feels exciting or interesting. Whether that feeling or that energy might come from a really bad place, that doesn’t matter as long as it’s honest and straightforward. It can be brutally sad."  He continues on to add, "We’re here to learn together. I think that is the thing, being together and being honest towards what and how we feel and what’s going down. Cause it’s so much stronger than trying to make a formula for it. But then at the same time it’s also just because we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. So the only thing we really can do is just be honest about what is going down in that specific moment." 

“It depends on the mood, but the only real constant thing in our process is that we go into the room being honest with the energy that’s in the room. ”

— Mads on the band's writing process

They used to send out thousands of emails a day with their music

Off Bloom have already worked with some notable names in music, including Two Inch Punch and AlunaGeorge. It turns out these opportunities first came around by just sending emails...thousands of emails. Mette describes their first encounter with Two Inch Punch, saying, "In the beginning when we didn’t have management, we didn’t have a label...we didn't have anything. We just had a lot of songs. And a lot of friends. The guys had been sending maybe 4,000 emails a day with the music. Just sending it to everybody, like idols and people in the industry and whatever. One night I had kind of the email “shift." It was my turn to write, kind of systematically. We went by Luke at the time and we just wrote ‘Hey, I am Luke, here is my music’ One of the people we sent it to was Two Inch Punch, and then the next morning, we got one response from all the hundreds of emails. It was from him. He was like, 'Fuck, this is fucking insanely good, who the fuck are you?' I didn’t really know who he was at that point, but I had heard the guys talk about him. I called Mads and said this guy Two Inch Punch answered, is he really cool or something?" Alex and Mads chime in that they both consider Two Inch Punch to be an idol and an inspiration on their music. 

Alex continues on the subject, saying,"The week after, we were in the studio working together [with Two Inch Punch]. Which was amazing and now we’ve become close friends, which is an even more sort of precious thing to get out of it, through contacting people through music. And working with him has also been great." Mads weighs in on working with Two Inch Punch, saying, "It’s also funny. I think a lot of people do that. Like 'ok, so if we get this really big guy who’s made a lot of records and sounds really professional to help us out with production, then it’s gonna sound perfect'. And then you go in there and it’s like oh, you can’t help us that much. It’s our mission....he can only point us in the right direction. For me, the main thing was having him believing in us because I believe so much in him."  They add that he's also been a great mentor on the business side of things. 

They're very involved with their music videos

As the band mentioned, they were very involved with promoting their music and getting it out to listeners in the early days. The trio released the video for "Falcon Eye" on February 28th, which they say they worked hard on, being heavily involved in the concept. "We’re very, very highly involved in everything that we do," Mette says. 

Mads adds, "I guess it’s good, but it’s also a control issue kind of thing. We just get frustrated cause there’s so much to do. But that’s why we pick really passionate and extremely talented people like Nadia who’s the director [for "Falcon Eye"]. Who almost becomes a part of our team. That’s what we want all the time, people who can inspire us to think even more creatively than we already do. And vice versa. Basically we can learn from each other. That’s basically the end goal with everything."

They give their all in their live shows 

While the three were discussing their plans for new music, Mette adds, "We’re gonna really start playing concerts. We’re doing a small European tour where we’re supporting Dua Lip and LANY. Then we’re going to the US hopefully soon, to start to play concerts over there as well. I think putting out a lot new music and playing a lot of concerts, that’s our goal for the next couple of months."

As for what the live shows will be like, Alex describes it as "raw energy." Elaborating on performing live, Mads says, "We feel so good, so alive. We want to create an experience with the audience. It’s not only for us, it’s not only for them, we do it together with them. It’s gonna be so much fun. We’ve been preparing for it already." 

Based on some Twitter responses, it seems like the LANY crowds were absolutely loving the raw energy provided by Off Bloom. If you get the chance to catch Off Bloom with Dua Lipa next month, it sounds like you're in for a treat. Londoners, you can also catch this energetic trio at The Pickle Factory in May. Check out all of Off Bloom's announced dates below:

View fullsize

Stay up to date with any new tour dates and music by checking Off Bloom's Facebook page, and get ready for their new material by getting familiar with their debut EP now:

A Chat With: Sarah Potenza

With yesterday being International Women's Day, this feels like the perfect week to have chatted with the fierce and fiery Sarah Potenza. During her set on Saturday night at Daytrotter Downs, Sarah slayed us all with her powerhouse, soulful vocals, which some of you may remember from Season 8 of The Voice. After her set, I complimented Sarah on her incredible performance, and that lead to an impromptu interview backstage at Daytrotter. In our chat, we talked about being badass boss ladies, moving to Nashville, being on The Voice, other great singer-songwriters, and more. Get to know more about Sarah Potenza now...

The Powerhouse: Sarah Potenza 

Photo Credit: Jeremy Ryan

ANCHR Magazine: Can you start by telling me a little of your story, like your background and how you wound up in Nashville from Chicago?

Sarah Potenza: I’m from Rhode Island, moved to Chicago in 2003, and then I moved to Nashville in 2012. That’s pretty much it. I moved to Chicago pretty much because I got in a car accident, and I got $3000 for my old car. So I decided to move there on a whim, I was like Chicago, I don’t know, I like Rosanne…

AM: So what’s been your favorite city so far?

Sarah Potenza: I really love Nashville so far... I mean I love Chicago. It’s weird, when you move somewhere, you feel like you have multiple homes. Like Rhode Island will always be my home in my heart, but I will still long for certain parts of Chicago. For certain things, like Chinatown...being able to get what you want to eat at any hour. Ethiopian food at 2 in the morning...the dude on the corner in a wheelchair who barks at you. Chicago has these amazing things. When I was in my early 20s, I posed for a naked painting in Chicago. Things that you wouldn’t do at home or Nashville, which is more conservative. It’s the south. Chicago was a little more wild... I got pretty wild in Chicago. Nashville is more peaceful because I rent a house, I don’t have an apartment on the third floor in Chicago in Humboldt Park. It’s a different kind of environment. I really enjoy that it’s like a suburban city in a way, but I wish they had more eggrolls, They don’t have a lot of great food [in Nashville]. They have good food, but not Chicago food.

AM: So what about the venues, what are your favorite Nashville venues?

Sarah Potenza: I’ve gotten the opportunity to sing at the Grand Ole Opry a lot, which has been amazing. That has been just a dream come true for me. When you sing on the stage at the Ryman Auditorium...

AM: Ahh, I haven’t even been there yet but its on my list to go!

Sarah Potenza: Oh my god, you should! People are in the pews and the moonlight comes in from the stained glass windows and you feel the presence of like Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline. You just feel it, it’s incredible. I sing a lot at the Bluebird which I love. There’s a place called The Basement that I really love. There’s a of great places. 

AM: So then who are some of your influences? I know you just mentioned Loretta Lynn.

Sarah Potenza:: Lucinda Williams is a big influence, I love her music. 

AM: That was an awesome cover by the way [Sarah covered a Lucinda Williams song during her Daytrotter Downs set]

Sarah Potenza: I also really love Bette Midler, the kind of gaudiness and the showmanship like [sings example]. You know, I love that kind of energy and that kind of shiny jewelry and crazy everything. Definitely as a songwriter, Lucinda Williams. Somebody who throws down, Charles Bradley and Mavis Staples. The soulfulness. Really it’s just a mish-mash of different kind of things.

AM: Yeah for sure. So I have to ask, you were on The Voice. So how was that experience?

Sarah Potenza: It was actually a great experience because when you’re on a stage of that magnitude, it’s very challenging because you’re being scrutinized by people on your voice. So it’s not so much the energy and the performance, like tonight when there’s a live crowd and you’re performing for the spirituality of it, as much as it’s an execution of perfection. Even down to emotions, so you challenge yourself to execute things on a higher level and things you think you can’t do. You go out there and you do it in front of 20 million people and it helps you to grow. So it was really a great experience in that regard.

AM: Do you still keep in touch with any of the other artists that were on the show?

Sarah Potenza: I do! My friend Meghan Linsey lives in Nashville and I never would have met her if we weren’t on The Voice because she is a very polished pop singer [and] pop performer. She’s just like a sister to me and we’ve become such good friends. Seeing a different side of the industry and the way that she approaches songwriting, melodies, and approaches her look...it helps us each to grow, I think. When you’re around a lot of the same, you kind of do the same. So when you’re around people that are different you pick up different things from them. We’ve become really good friends. She’s the one I’m in the most touch with.

AM: What other artists are you really into at the moment?

Sarah Potenza: I’ve really gotten into Parker Millsap, who I recently did Cayamo with, which is a cruise. Like a songwriters cruise. Brandi Carlile...Buddy Miller, all these people who were on it that are amazing. I got on there, and I was so lucky to get on there. Parker Millsap was on it, and I assumed that he was gonna be more folk. He was like blues-rock, but not like cheesy, dad-jeans blues rock...blues rock that you wanna hear, like modern, indie blues. It was really refreshing and I really enjoyed his music.

AM: Anyone else?

Sarah Potenza: I also really dig this guy called Aaron Lee Tasjan. He was also on that, he’s a Nashville guy. I’m really digging his music. I’m also really getting into more pop stuff in a weird way. I really became obsessed with Lemonade, but like who didn’t? It was so empowering as a woman. To watch somebody show what it meant to be from the South, to be black, to be a woman. The problems that women have in relationships, in their job. It’s so interesting to see that even fucking Beyonce has those problems, so being a woman isn’t something you can escape. So no matter how high up you go. Like what happened with Clinton, you encounter these obstacles. It’s discouraging in one way because it’s like my god, even Beyonce has these problems, but it’s enlightening in a way to see somebody express these problems and be like goddamnit... and empowering women. To deal with those problems that we all deal with as women. It kind of blew my mind.

“It’s so interesting to see that even fucking Beyonce has those problems, so being a woman isn’t something you can escape. No matter how high up you go”

— Sarah on the obstacles women face

AM: Speaking of that when I introduced myself, you said you love supporting women in the industry, so do you have any advice or experiences you’ve learned from?

Sarah Potenza:  It’s really important for women to lift each other up. To support each other and not knock each other down. For example, there is another really amazing soul singer in Nashville named Alanna Royale. We’ve become really good friends, and in my youth perhaps I would have been jealous of her or vice versa. As you get older you realize there’s room enough for everyone. Women kind of have this mentality where they wanna be the only one getting attention. Because we’re raised that way, because society treats us that way. It’s so important that we stick together. That we say 'hey listen, I got a deal from Mac Makeup, they’re sponsoring me, how about I hook you up?" or "hey I got this gig, it’s really great, I can’t make it, wanna do it?" Instead of keeping all these secrets to ourselves just because you don’t wanna see someone else rise.

AM: Yeah, I feel like the more you help people, the more you’re gonna get that back. It’s Karma…

Sarah Potenza: It’s so important. It’s Karma, and it also just encourages a behavior in the industry. I'm in the Americana Music Association, and I did a gospel show. I chose to pick all women, and I’ve done a bunch of lineups where I pick all women. Because we do get overlooked. I look at record labels..there are record labels in Nashville right now, and I won’t name names, but there are labels that have 7 women and 49 men. This is routine because women don’t sell as much as men, and there aren’t as many female musicians. It’s so much harder for us because it is a boy’s club. I learned to play guitar because I couldn’t get any guys to let me be in their band. I was like fuck it, I’m just gonna do it on my own. It makes a difference when I walk into a room, into a rehearsal, for me to be able to say it’s in this key, or no, do it like this. And to show what I’m trying to do on guitar... to talk about the chord progression.

AM: Yeah, and even your email address has "big boss" in it.

Sarah Potenza: It’s important for me. I like to be...I’m the boss. As a woman, that can be seen as oh well, she’s a bitch, she’s a diva. But if I was a guy, people would be like oh, that’s so sexy. So I don’t care. I’m doing my thing, you know.

AM: So how did you get this opportunity to play here?

Sarah Potenza: My publicist from my last record had hooked me up with Daytrotter to do a session. Then my booking agent just happened to have Gaelynn Lea playing [the festival] and I told them I really wanna do because I thought it was cool. A lot of times I do these gigs that are really great, but they’re not like the it, happening thing. I wanted to do this because it’s the happening thing.

AM: So you said earlier you don’t know a lot of these bands, but--

Sarah Potenza: I don’t know a lot of these bands, but I’m listening to them and it’s been great! I’m going to listen to my friend Lawrence Peters with his band tonight. It’s a new band...Velcro Lewis Group. I’m gonna go see them because he's a friend of mine from Chicago who used to be in band called The Lawrence Peters Outfit, which I think he still does. But it’s more country so this is something new for him.

AM: Cool! Lastly, what else is in store this year for you?

Sarah Potenza: I'm working on writing more, cause I love to write. I feel like I wrote my old record and got all that stuff out. I’m ready to write my next one. So writing, traveling around the country playing as many shows as I can. Getting my music out to as many people as I can. Writing and Traveling, that’s pretty much it.

AM: Do you record in a certain place?

Sarah Potenza: In Nashville, with Joe McMahan. It was the first time I used a producer and that was game changing for me because I didn’t know the things that I had to change to really get the best out of myself for the songs. Cause I’m so in it.  So having a third party say, "this is too long, we need to drop a verse" or "what if this was a fast song and not a slow song?" You know? It was so worth every dollar. Game changer. 

Make sure you keep up to date with all things tour and new music on Sarah's Facebook Page. You can also listen to her album Monster now: 

Catching Up With In Tall Buildings

On Day 2 of Daytrotter Downs, the Chicago-based group In Tall Buildings played a beautiful afternoon set. Afterwards, the man behind In Tall Buildings, Erik Hall, sat down with me to talk about what he's been up to since the release of his second album Driver, which he released in 2015. We chatted about what's next for 2017 as far as music and tour, working with other bands, Chicago venues, the art of recording and producing your own music, and more. Here are 7 things I learned from catching up with In Tall Buildings...

Photo Credit: Caleb Condit

He Has A New Album Coming Soon

During In Tall Buildings' Saturday afternoon set at Daytrotter Downs, Erik mentioned that they were trying out some new songs during the set, which was only their second time trying them out live. "[Tomorrow Never Knows] was the first time I played a couple of those new ones. Tonight we kind of brushed them off and tried them again," Erik revealed when I asked about the new material.  "There’s a new album that’s practically done. It will be coming out, later this year," he continued. 

Along with the album, we can also expect a tour from In Tall Buildings. "We'll certainly do some playing once this record is out. I'd like to do some dates in the Fall, and then maybe let the record exist for a while. Maybe go out again in the Spring next year. Nothing’s on the calendar, but we’ll definitely do some touring," Erik says. Since In Tall Buildings has never played on the West Coast, Erik also mentions one of their goals for the new album is to make it out there. 

The new album was recorded at his home studio, as usual, but there's one thing that's different...

For Erik's previous two records as In Tall Buildings, In Tall Buildings and Driver, he recorded them at his home studio as the artist, engineer, and producer.  For his third album, he enlisted in the help of another Chicago-based producer. "The main difference is that with this album I’m working with a producer. He’s been working with me at my place, at my home studio. This record includes his input. In terms of just kind of getting the songs to the finish line, and shaping the sounds...and also just the kind of honing the song themselves, the song craft," Erik says. 

Elaborating on his righthand man for this record, Erik says, "His name is Brian Deck. He’s in Chicago as well. He’s worked with Modest Mouse, Califone, and Iron and Wine a bunch. So it’s been really cool, it’s been really fun, and just kind of a load off to have somebody else make some of the decisions." 

The songwriting style of "Album 3" is a departure for Erik, but not a drastic one

"There’s not any drastic change in where I’m driving influence for my songs. It’s just the main change with this new record is I'm trying to really reduce the amount of time between when I start writing a new song and when I finish that new song. So, not letting myself sit for so long with a song in progress. And just really trying to act on impulses, and not be so utterly precious with every single decision that needs to be made. It’s kind of a serious leap to take," Erik says.

Although it's been a big leap, Erik says he thinks it worked out well. Continuing on that subject, he says, "I’m psyched about the record... I can't wait for people to hear it. I think it sounds different from Driver. I don’t know if people will necessarily think that it’s such a departure, but for me it is."

Balancing his time between In Tall Buildings and his other projects has been surprisingly easy

Erik is involved in a few other bands, but the main one he works with is Wild Belle, who are also from Chicago. Despite touring with Wild Belle, Erik was able to complete the next In Tall Buildings album fairly easily. "It’s actually amazing how well it works to have both projects...that are so different and that take such different energy on my part. I’ve made my last two records now while also being on and off the road with Wild Belle. I think if I didn’t have those tour dates creating structure in my schedule, I don’t know if I would have gotten a record done," he says.

Erik continues on to say he's found a really great match with Wild Belle, adding, "Luckily there haven’t been a whole lot of times where there’s actually a conflict of schedule. They, being my best friends, and Quinn, who’s in both bands with me... it’s just so easy to coexist."

He also says he'll be heading out to Austin with Wild Belle to play one show as Wild Belle, so if you're heading down there as well, make sure you check it out!

He's out of the loop with Chicago bands, but he's a pro when it comes to Chicago venues

When I asked Erik if he had any new favorite local bands, it kind of stumped him. "I’m so out of the loop with Chicago bands. The amount of bands that are here [at Daytrotter Downs] that are from Chicago that I’m discovering is just staggering. I don’t think I’m the best person to answer that question. Part of it is that I’m just blanking, but honestly a big part of it is that I just am kind of a hermit when I’m in town. When I’m home, I just don’t pay enough attention of what’s going on around me. I stay home a lot. My wife and I just love our home life," he says. Given the fact that he's been working on a new record between touring with another band, we'll let him off the hook.

When talking about Tomorrow Never Knows, Erik mentioned that he loves playing Lincoln Hall and Schubas. "I love them both. Love The Hideout. Those are all rooms where I feel very much at home. The Metro lately has been so fantastic to play with Wild Belle. We just played at the Aragon [Ballroom] with Wild Belle. We opened for Band of Horses. That was a venue that I grew up going to shows. I was remembering while we were there that I saw Metallica with my brother. Then practically the next time I went there was to play there. So It was kind of surreal," he continued. 

Between all of his bands and projects, Erik has played such a variety of venues around the city, so he was able to shout out some of the smaller venues in town, as well. "I also just love some of these smaller stages in town that we’ve really made quite a home at. I don’t know if you know, The Whistler has a record a label and they put out my first album. Absolutely love playing The Whistler. It’s just such a good, cool space and such good vibes. Billy, the owner, is a good friend and I just love what they’ve done. Also Quinn, Elliot [Bergman], and I have another group called Metal Tongues, that’s more of an experimental, instrumental, kind of psych, noise, jazz. It’s hard to describe. But we’ve been playing a lot lately at the California Clipper. Which is fantastic. It’s super warm and kind of dim, and the cocktails are great. The stage is in the corner and it’s nicely elevated. It’s just this really cool kind of old school place," he says. 

Producing his own work can get difficult, but luckily he has a mentor

As mentioned, Erik has his own home studio where he records everything for In Tall Buildings. He's been into recording since 13 years old. Talking more about his start with recording, Erik says, "I was given a 4-track cassette recorder by my dad for my birthday. That was the dawn of my love for recording. Just the ability to record one part and then add to it and record more parts, was just the coolest thing to be able to do. Just so exciting and so engaging. It’s kind of a classic tale, but literally that was when it started and I just never stopped. I’ve had a few different systems since then, now of course it’s much more elaborate. But it’s still just contained within my home." 

As for being his own producer when he's also the writer, Erik says it can be difficult, but he's been able to do it by listening to his work in a new light once it's recorded. "I was actually just recently reading this interview with Brian Eno, where he just hits the nail on the head. He says you’re a completely different person as a maker as you are as a listener. And it couldn’t be more true. That’s why in the past, I’ve been very deliberate about getting out of my studio to listen to what I’ve been working on in a different environment. To take some time away from it at times. To listen with fresh ears. It can be very hard to do that all yourself, but I’ve liked doing it myself," he says. 

Erik also says he was able to find a mentor who inspired him as an artist and producer. "Our old band NOMO, we were recorded by a guy named Warren Defever. His band is called His Name is Alive, and he’s been putting out records since 1991 I think. He is a good friend and mentor in terms of audio and recording of all kind. He recorded and produced all of the NOMO records. Between those experiences and being a part of some of the His Name is Alive records, I would say that he’s kind of the biggest influence in terms of learning about recording and kind of how to not only capture the best sound and manipulate it in good ways, but also just running a session. And working with other people, working with bands. He was a big influence."

His advice for getting into making your own music is...

Given the amount of work that Erik has done with a number of different bands, I had to ask if he had any advice for an artist looking into making and recording their own work. "I would say it’s easy to think you need way more stuff than you actually do need. My advice would be...advice that I myself am trying to follow lately, which is to really listen. Actually listen. And not just apply tools that you like that you think sound good that you think you need to apply. Often times something just sounds best completely naturally, just as it has been recorded. And not manipulated. I’m realizing this more and more and it’s so freeing. Because then the work is already done! If it sounds good then the work is done," Erik advised. 

As of now, there's still official word on the release date or title of the third In Tall Buildings record, but make sure to stay up to date on In Tall Buildings Facebook page. While you patiently wait for new music and tour dates, listen to 2015's Driver in full...

Get To Know: Seasaw

Harmonies. Sparkles. Friendship. Those three words come to mind when I think of the folk-pop duo Seasaw. After their wonderful and quirky set on the Daytrotter stage on day 1 of Daytrotter Downs, I sat down with Meg Golz and Eve Wilczewski to find out more about these Madison-based musicians with a magnetic stage presence. The pair released their third album last summer and they are currently on tour for the next two weeks, playing in major cities like DC, Chicago, and New York. During our interview, we chatted about their fateful meeting, the process behind the album, their love for Karen O, choreographed dancing, and more.  Get to know Seasaw now...

Photo: Scotify

---

They come from a music-saturated background

"I grew up in a musical family," Meg Golz says about her start in music. "I started playing piano in grade school, and I just couldn’t focus on it. I started the cello in 5th grade. I played that until I was a junior in high school...I was just never very good at it, I decided to try choir for a year," Meg continues. She even went on to take a percussion course after she didn't make varsity choir, which got you out of gym class. Luckily, she made the drum line and that got her out of gym class. "That’s where I learned to play the drums," she says. In addition to piano, cello, and drums, Meg says she eventually picked up the guitar when she went away to college. 

As for Eve Wilczewski, her family wasn't as into creating music, but they were always very appreciative of it. "My mom did play piano, my dad did play the accordion, but they both let it dwindle and didn’t really follow through. They both are like huge music fans and took me to shows and concerts all throughout my childhood," Eve says. She continues on to say that her mom got her into playing music at a young age. "I've played violin since 2nd grade. That was really awesome cause I had a head start before the regular public school, which starts usually at 5th grade. I did violin all throughout high school. I still play, but I don’t take lessons anymore. I also did guitar in high school and continue to play that. Guitar was kind of just because I was tired of playing classical music and wanted to learn the things that I listened to. I love the violin but all the teachers I had wanted to only do classical and I wanted to do gypsy music, or jazz music, or bluegrass...," Eve recalls. "I wanted to do that so I could incorporate more of the stuff that I love," she says about playing guitar. 

An Italian restaurant brought them together

As Eve and Meg tell the story about how they get together, I can tell it's one that's been told many times, but they tell it in a very authentic, genuine way. Meg starts the story, saying, "I went away to college, but I hated it. So I came back after a semester to try to figure out where else I wanted to go. I started working at an Italian restaurant that I had worked in while I was in high school, and they took me back." Eve interjected the story to say, "We’re 6 years apart. So we never met in middle or high school. I was with Meg’s brother and sister, but I never met her. So it was lucky that we met at this restaurant. We met by chance."  As fate would have it, they both had started working at the restaurant, often on the same shift. "We kind of got to talking and realized that we listened to the same type of music, and we had the same sense of humor. We knew we both played music cause I knew [Eve] was in orchestra with my brother and sister," Meg says. 

"We would just be talking and laughing and almost be getting fired our entire shift because we were secretly making fun of stuff and laughing. There would be no one there on our shift," Eve recalled. Despite the good times they had working together, Meg says she had to court a friendship out of Eve for months. "I kept asking if she wanted to hang out with me and she’d be like 'hmm I gotta hang out with my mom'. I always thought she was like joking...She was actually hanging out with her mom. I realized as I became her friend that she wasn’t actually playing me that whole time," Meg reminisced. 

They recorded and produced their third album themselves

Seasaw's record Too Much of a Good Thing was the first one they were able to fully take their time on. "Meg recorded it in the basement studio that we have in Madison. Meg mixed a lot of it, and engineered it, and we were able to spend as much time as we possibly could. Before this album, I was living far away in La Crosse, WI. So the other two albums that we’ve done have been basically nickled and dimed on weekends. This is the first one where we actually got to be engrossed in the product from start to finish without relying on other people," Eve says. 

Meg picked up her craft of engineering and producing when she went away to the Madison Media Institute. Fate also played a hand in this record's production when Eve moved into a house that coincidentally had a basement studio. "We just insulated it ourselves and did the recording in there," Meg says about the basement studio. Continuing to talk about recording experience, she says, "It was an awesome learning experience all around and allowed us to have the product we were really passionate and happy with. Also we were able to really study what we were creating, and build the concept of what songs we were including." 

Eve's artistic background plays a hand in their style

During their performance, Meg and Eve were rocking some amazing, coordinated outfits. And they had a bedazzled drum kit, so naturally I had to ask them where they get their style inspiration. "Eve is really into fashion," Meg says. After Eve interjected to say she's not that into fashion in "normal life" and it's more for the stage, Meg continues, "She has a painting degree so she has the most amazing eye for color. So she puts things together that I normally wouldn’t and then I’m able to like match my outfit to go with that. I don’t love dressing myself and it’s good when she takes the lead."

Eve elaborates on their stage style, saying, "I think part of it for me, is when I go see a performance, as an audience member, it takes a lot of effort for me to get my body in the building. Like I put in effort to look nice because it’s a special thing and I’m spending my money and time to go see something. And I think as a performer, because we were both trained as dancers and musicians in orchestra and choir...you always want to create that whole package, like I’m putting in effort and I look nice for you. Or like I’m looking at least interesting or thought-provoking. Also bands have been doing this forever, like The Beatles and The Beach Boys all coordinate. I think it goes along with my painting degree, like the aesthetic of what we’re putting together. It’s important to me. And also when I go out and see bands, it’s a choice to look one way or the other. And I think [Meg's] right because I am a painting major that I notice that. It’s very forefront for me." 

Meg and Eve also channel their creativity and unique style into their music videos. Their most recent video for "Into the White" features dancing and balloons, and it was shot in all one take. Meg and Eve also came up with the concept themselves. Talking more about the video (which you need to watch), Meg says, "I [had] been dying to do a dancing video. That’s one of the things I love most about Eve. I can do the worst and most awful dancing in any scenario and it will always make her laugh. It’s just the best sound in the world and it encourages me to do this thing I’m not very good at."  

Karen O and diverse artists inspire them

As far as their style (and sound) influences, both Meg and Eve agree that Karen O (from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) has inspired them. Meg says what she loves about Karen O is "her power on stage as a performer and the things that she’s passionate about, and what she does for the general community as well as the music community." Eve says they also appreciate her diversity, and Meg mentions that they were in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover band. Continuing the discussion about diversity, Eve says, "We don’t really like to have two songs that sound the same.I just get bored really easily. We are attracted to artists who do diverse things. Cause like even The Beatles almost every song is completely different."

Eve also gives a nod to another artist for inspiring her. "Someone that I really love is an artist named Buffy Sainte-Marie. She’s an artist that was an activist and a folk musician back in the 60's.  Her music was very anti-Vietnam War and pro American-Indian movement, so she got blacklisted and a lot of people don’t know about her music. She’s made music though the whole time, she’s still making music... and she’s 70. She’s really into fashion, she’s got a beautiful figure. She’s a visual artist, she’s gorgeous and she keeps creating relevant things about like the oil industry and XYZ," Eve gushes. "Buffy has this like amazing voice and very diverse work, cause she does all these social songs, but there’s love songs or it’s like rock or folk. So both of these women [Karen O and Buffy Sainte-Marie] are like very powerful women and prolific. They both haven’t stopped making. We both also love the White Stripes. And I think all these artists have a rawness. I don’t like it sounding too polished," Eve continued.

They love the Madison music scene

While talking to Meg and Eve, they just radiated vibes of love and positivity between each other, and it quickly became clear that friendship makes up the foundation of their band.  In addition to the bond between them as a band, they also have a lot of love for their home-town music scene. 

"Madison is a very nice community, like the musicians there are very nice and welcoming. Like I didn’t know anyone in Madison and some of the first people I met were bands that invited us to play. So I don’t know, it’s unique because everyone just wants everyone to succeed instead of being competitive. Like everybody lifts each other up. We had four or five local musicians from all different bands play with us [at our record release show]," Eve says. 

"We premiered our video that night and we also had all the guests who had played on the album come join us and we played with a full band. We don’t usually do that, that’s the first time we’ve ever had a full band on stage," Meg chimed in about the album release show. "We come from a community where there really was no music scene so it’s really just unique to be now put into that and being in such a welcoming spot," Eve adds. 

Meg and Eve also shouted out some of their fellow Madison musicians playing Daytrotter Downs, like The Hussy and Vanishing Kids. 

---

As far as what's next for the dynamic duo, Meg and Eve say they plan on doing a couple more videos for this album, and they're even releasing an exclusive track on a compilation LP for Record Store Day. "[It's] called the Wisconsin Vinyl Collective. So this LP is gonna be a collective of all Wisconsin artists.  The standout ones is the BoDeans and Emperors of Wyoming," Eve says. They also hope to be playing festivals throughout the summer, but for now, check them out on tour. Chicago, Seasaw plays The Beat Kitchen on March 15th. Grab tickets here.

Stream Too Much of a Good Thing below:

Get To Know: Mountain Swallower

One of the greatest things about Daytrotter Downs Festival was the amount of local and regional acts on the line up. While most of the 47 bands on the line up are based somewhere in the Midwest, so many talented bands from the heart of the Quad Cities took part in the two day event in Davenport. One of those bands, Mountain Swallower, even had a headlining slot on Day 1...or as they put it, they were just playing last. Hours before their midnight set (which had the craziest crowd response of the night), the guys sat down with me to talk about their start as musicians, their goals, and the local music scene. Get to know Mountain Swallower now...

Mountain Swallower is Garrin Jost, Mark Leveling, Steve Maule, and Kirby Calamari

---

Community College and Craigslist brought them together

Talking about their start as a band, Garrin Jost says, "Steve and I used to play together in a band like 8 years ago. At that point, I wasn’t really writing songs much at all. We were in a band and neither of us really wrote for that band. I kinda got the bug from there and then started writing and did like open mic stuff for a long time with loop pedals. Then finally just started the band. We craigslisted up Kirby." 

Kirby Calamari first start playing guitar in 6th grade back in Danville, IL, where he's originally from. While Mark Leveling is originally from Aurora, IL, Garrin and drummer Steve Maule are native to the Quad Cities.  "That was the best part of community college. I found Garrin," Steve said. Garrin credits the years after community college as one of his most creative periods, saying, "I worked, but didn’t really work that hard. So I had a bunch of time to write. Lots of times I just try to consume a bunch of bands that I like and map out songs and just kind of regurgitate that form. It’s a lot of just ripping off bands that I like and listening to weird things and finding a middle ground." 

They structure their songs on influences like Nirvana, but say they've topped Nirvana in one aspect...

When I asked who their influences are, Garrin says, "A bunch of bands that are way better than us. Like Jeff Buckley and Nirvana." When he talks about his song writing process, Garrin credits those bands for inspiring the structure of his songs, saying, "I’m not a super educated guitar player. I used to play trombone a lot so that’s like my background. But as far as guitar is concerned and writing, I’ll just like think 'How can I touch this guitar in a way I’m not used to doing' and then I’ll find something that’s like oh that’s cool and pull on that thread until something comes out of it. Then form-wise, just ripping off Nirvana and Bob Dylan. Like a bunch of people I really like." 

Garrin also sees another similarity between his band and one of their influences, Nirvana. "We’re like a shitty meta-Nirvana," he says. "Their big thing was like total nihilism, like whatever, nevermind... we don’t care, but we’re really good actually. Whereas like we don’t care and we’re actually not good. We got one more step on your, Nirvana!"  Despite what they say about not being good, the crowd at Daytrotter Downs definitely didn't agree with that, so they're even more similar to Nirvana than they think. 

They're fans of Australian bands and bands that promote unity 

While the band were discussing their influences, Steve says their tastes are varied, but there's a common theme. "We’ve got a wide range. We like bands that are always changing. They might have a weird edge or something unique about them, but at the end of the day I feel like the common thread for the bands we like...they’re bands that bring people together. They’re bands that make you feel better after you see them, hopefully. They have a message that promotes togetherness and unity."  

Garrin says they'd love to play in Australia one day because they "have a crush on all these Australian bands." Kirby says his favorite bands include The Dune Rats and Stick Fingers, while Garrin mentions Tame Impala and Pond. Steve also mentions Wolf Alice, saying, "They’re not Australian, but that’s a shared band that we all really like." Steve also credits their location for bringing them lots of great new music, saying, "That’s a good part of the Midwest. You get stuff from both coasts." 

They're short-sighted, but they've come a long way

"We’re really short sighted as a band in a lot of ways. We’re just like when’s our next show, how do we get ready for it?" Garrin says while talking about their plans for playing live this year. Although they don't have any plans to tour across the country any time soon, Mark says, "The good thing is the phone calls keep coming [to play local shows], so we’ve never really gotten to a point where it’s like OK we’re not playing for the next couple of months."  

The band do notice that the reception of their audiences have been growing though. Steve talks more on this subject, saying, "We’ve all had bands where no one would come. There were many years where the reception wasn’t as good, but we had a blast still. So no matter what, we still do it. Now considering the response has been better, it put fire under our butts. We’re really thinking of the goals to improve and get better." Garrin adds, "It’s cool. We’ve played in bands before and we’re finally reaching this point where we’re like equally authentic and relatable. So we’re not having to give up anything and people still seem to like it so it’s like as long as we can do that, we’re good to go." 

Throughout their years of playing music, they've also learned some important lessons. "You have to be vocal," Garrin says. "I feel like we’re fairly democratic. Even though the songwriting stuff is dictatorial, I feel like we’re all vocal about how we feel. We don’t ever leave the stage ticked off. Definitely in other bands there were times when I was like 'I did not enjoy this.' There’s nothing worse when you’re halfway through a set and you’re like 'I am not digging this,'" he continued. Steve elaborates on the process of being vocal with Garrin's songwriting, saying, "I feel like we shape the songs as a unit and add our own stank to them." Steve also says that they've learned to be more aware of what they're getting into, after having a weird experience playing at a benefit show. The most important lesson that Steve has learned, though, is that friendship comes first. "At the end of the day, I feel like we’re friends. We might not be the best band in terms of playing or we might not have some strengths that some bands have, but that stuff doesn’t really matter considering our goal is to learn and grow," he says. 

“We might not be the best band in terms of playing or we might not have some strengths that some bands have, but that stuff doesn’t really matter considering our goal is to learn and grow,”

— Steve on the importance of being friends with his bandmates

They're proud of the QC music scene

Since Daytrotter Downs was actually my first time taking a trip to Quad Cities, I asked Mountain Swallower for the inside scoop on the best bands and venues.  "We gotta rep Condor &Jaybird. They’re the band closest to us as far as bands we’ve played with the most," Garrin says, while Kirby shouts out local venue Rozz Tox as being the best place to play. 

"I’ve heard it called a renaissance for Quad Cities lately," Steve says. Continuing on that subject, he says, "There really is a big upswing of creative people coming together. Years back when Garrin and I played and before that there were peaks and valleys for a while... it didn’t seem as cohesive or connected as now. But with Daytrotter and Rozz Tox, there’s so many bands that have snowballed into a community now. There’s a band called Closet Witch, they’re playing tomorrow. There’s so many...Archeress. All of these bands are worlds apart as far as how they sound, but it doesn’t matter because we’re all a community. We all do what we love to do."

Get to know the band even better by listening to their two releases, both self-titled. (I asked if there was a story behind having two self-titled albums, but they say a lack of a story got them there). 

Also make sure to catch a live set from Mountain Swallower if you can!

Catching Up With NE-HI

This past weekend I headed out to Davenport, IA to catch an amazing line up at Daytrotter Downs festival, featuring one of my favorite Chicago bands, NE-HI. The band have just released their sophomore album Offers on February 24th, but in the past few months, they've been all over the place.  Not only did NE-HI play a sold out album release show at The Empty Bottle, but they've recently performed on the legendary JBTV stage, they've done in-store performances at record stores, and they're booked to play SXSW in the middle of cross-country tour. Prior to their 10PM slot on the Daytrotter stage, they sat down to talk about the craziness that accompanied the album release and what's next for them. Here are five things I learned when I caught up with NE-HI: 

NE-HI is Jason Balla, Alex Otake, Michael Wells, James Weir

Photo Credit: Bryan Allen Lamb

Nothing gives them more joy than just playing shows

When asked how their week has been since Offers dropped, drummer Alex Otake says, "It's been really good. We had a release show at The Empty Bottle the day it came out and it was awesome. We had one of our friends make visuals for it...he did like a TV installation."  

Although they've gotten to do lots of sessions and other forms of promo for the album, Jason Balla echoed Alex by agreeing that there's just something about playing a good live show that's impossible to top. "The show [at Empty Bottle] is pretty hard to beat. It was this amazing time. So many people that we knew and so many people we didn’t know. The Empty Bottle has a place in all of our hearts, so that’s pretty hard to beat. Playing the Audiotree thing was really fun. We also played a Chirp session in this warehouse that they have. That stuff is  always fun, but playing shows is where the joy is for me," Jason says. 

James Weir chimed in that his favorite part of the record release has been "people giving their respect in the music world and family giving praise and showing love," also adding, "We worked so hard on that record and it’s been a beautiful experience." 

Their least favorite part of releasing and promoting an album? Alex says taking pictures, while James says waking up early. Jason agrees, saying "Waking up early is actually the hardest part of it. You could get away with getting to bed early, but we don’t seem to have figured out how to do that. We were in Omaha yesterday and if you go to Omaha, you have to go to Brothers Lounge afterwards!"  The waking up early seemed to really affect Michael Wells, who was a man of very few words during the interview. 

They recorded Offers in two installments

The two installments took place between January and March of last year, but James reveals they scraped most of what they recorded in January because of "self-imposed pressure".  Jason agreed, saying, "Yeah we got signed....I don’t even know exactly like when that all went down, but for that first batch of stuff we were working on, we were kind of like overthinking a little too much. We were like 'Oh now we have like this label deal, we gotta really do some good shit.' That kind of mentality winds up making doing good shit impossible. So we kind of noticed [that] once we did those first songs in the studio." 

Alex also agreed, saying that on the first batch of material they were "just overthinking and then overwriting." He adds, "[We were] not writing like how it came naturally like when we wrote our first record."  Luckily, they were able to overcome their self-inflicted pressure for their recording sessions it March. Jason revealed, "It kinda took a little bit to shock us out of that mentality. Once we started having fun, it started coming really fast and like through this one, the big difference is that we got a lot better at editing and being critical of ourselves. We would like have a lot of fun and write the songs, and then when we had the songs written we would be like OK what actually is necessary for it to exist basically."  

Offers Album Cover

They'd like to score Hot Tub Time Machine 3

The group originally got together to score a friend's film, which unfortunately never even got released. However, James has requested it be known that they'd really like to do the score for the third installment of Hot Tub Time Machine, should it ever be made. Jason adds, "That would be great. And we also want Cusack back. Bring back the Cusack. We’ll only do it if he’s on board."  The band's love for Hot Tub Time Machine runs so deep that Alex even revealed that they tried to start a rumor that Offers syncs up to the film, saying, "We had this idea for when this record was coming out to say that like you know when you watch Wizard of Oz and you put on Dark Side of the Moon? We were going to say that our record would line up with Hot Tub Time Machine perfectly."  

On a more serious note, the band revealed some of their other favorite film scores. "The score for Moonlight was really good. I just listened to this interview about it and it talked about how the movie is set up in three acts basically. For each act the tone got a little bit darker, so the composer like dropped it an octave. It’s pretty cool," James said. Alex says he's a fan of Italian horror films from the 1970's and anything John Carpenter, while Jason gets a kick out of Chef's Table. "Have you ever seen the show Chef’s Table? It’s like a food documentary, but it’s set to classical music," he says, continuing, "It’s the most epic shit. It’s like someone is just putting an oyster on a plate and it’s like [dramatic music]."  

They stay entertained on their van by making up alien alter egos

Since the band are touring cross country in a van, naturally they've got to come up with unique ways of staying entertained. Besides listening to true crime podcasts, which Alex revealed are his favorite, they also put their imaginations to the test. "We have a lot of jokes in the van," Jason says. "I just got these sunglasses and they kind of like acquired an alter ego. I mostly annoy everyone in the van. So you’d have to ask them how they put up with me more than anything. There’s not really any name for that guy. He’s like an undercover sort of alien robot. Basically it’s like this character who is undercover trying to pass as a human, but he’s like always making mistakes."  

As far as their favorite places that they're traveling to this tour, Jason says, "North Hampton is one of my personal favorites. I used to hate New York but I like it a lot now. There's ones that are obviously fun cities to go to, but my favorites are like the sneaky ones. Like North Hampton is so sick and like Pittsburgh is one of our favorite places to go."  

They're supporters of the Chicago music scene 

NE-HI are really excited to be heading down to Austin to play some SXSW shows, but they're also excited to catch some fellow Chicagoans perform at the festival.  "We’re actually playing a really tight show with Wand and my friends White Reaper, and another Chicago band, Post Animal," Jason says, also shouting out NoName, a rapper from Chicago. 

As for other Chicago bands that they're into at the moment, Alex says, "Cafe Racer, Deeper. Both of those bands we got to play with at our release show. They’re amazing. There’s tons of stuff."  He added "We’ve talked about it a lot, but it’s really awesome, healthy competition. Because so many people are making really amazing music, so we don’t want to be the one band making shitty music. Like 'we like you, but your band’s not that great.'"  

While they've got love for Chicago musicians, they also have a great relationship with the independent record store, Shuga Records. Offers is currently available on clear vinyl, exclusively at Shuga. When I asked how that deal came about, Jason says, "I like their vibe a lot, but they’ve been incredibly supportive of NE-HI and other projects that we play in. So I would just go over there to sell them records of our first record and I’d always get to talking with the people that work there. They actually did an exclusive of our first record and that one was going well, so they were like we wanna do one for this one. It’s really cool to be able to do something special. And it’s really neat when it’s exclusive to one store. We played an in store with them too which was really fun!"  

---

There you have it.  Make sure you go see NE-HI and their alien alter egos on tour...you can check out all of their tour dates here. Listen to their sophomore album Offers here:

A Chat With: Alex Lahey

Last week we chatted with Australian rocker Alex Lahey, known for her infectious indie sound and relatable, narrative style lyrics. Currently on tour promoting her debut EP B Grade University, Alex has just wrapped up supporting Tegan and Sara int the UK. Soon she'll be heading over to America for her first tour over here, including a stop at Schubas Tavern in Chicago on Monday, March 20th. Before the start of her tour, we chatted with the down-to-earth singer-songwriter about her touring, SXSW festival, long haul flights, David Lynch films and more. Don't miss our chat with Alex Lahey...

The authentic Aussie, Alex Lahey (say that 5 times fast)

Photo Credit: Kane Hibberd

---

ANCHR Magazine: I know you just recently toured Europe with Tegan and Sara, so how was that tour? Do you have any crazy stories from it?

Alex Lahey: Yeah, I mean it was short. But sweet. We were only on the ground for about 8 days I think. So very brief, but it was so much fun. Nothing really crazy kind of happened. We only came at the end of it, but they’d been on tour for three weeks. So they were already kind of over it...not over it, but like they were sort of in the rhythm of it and we got there like “Awesome!” while everyone else was just business as usual. It was still amazing. I think the craziest thing for me is that Tegan and Sara are world class, but like their drummer plays for Shakira, the keyboard player plays for No Doubt and Gwen Stefani, and their bass player plays for like Jordan Sparks and Sean Paul. Their production manager just came off tour with Rihanna, like she’s like “Rihanna is just such a sweet girl” and we’re just like what the hell? You know? It’s all this stuff, this weird world that you don’t actually think exists, but you know, it does. And so that’s probably the craziest thing that came out of it for me.  Apart from that, it was pretty...I think for us we were very much deer in headlights. We were taking it all in stride. We were trying to stay healthy and me in particular looking after my voice. When you’re doing four shows in a row sort of thing, like that’s something we don’t really do in Australia. Touring like that doesn’t really happen there. You sort of just tour on the weekends and you’re at home during the week. Whereas in Europe and the US because there are so many people and so many places to play, you tour through the week, and there’s always people there to see you. So that was sort of an adjustment for me in the way I manage myself in a way that was more sustainable. Which basically meant I just had to drink less. And sleep more.

AM: So that was actually your first time playing playing out of Australia, right? Then you’re coming to the States...are you here already?

Alex Lahey: No, not yet I fly out next Friday

AM: Cool, so what are you most excited to see while you’re over here? Any cities in particular that you’re looking forward to playing?

Alex Lahey: I mean SXSW is like a pilgrimage.  So that’ll be pretty special I think. It sort of seems like one of those things- have you been before, to South By?

AM: I have not and I keep meaning to go, but it’s such a long festival and getting the time to go-

Alex Lahey: Where do you live?

AM: Chicago!

Alex Lahey: Yeah, so you’ve probably heard some stories that it’s sort of like you go there and you have a schedule of things to do and you go there and all this other stuff happens. Like you just don’t know what to expect. I think that’s gonna be really fun. I’m really excited to play... Playing in New York is just a bucket list sort of thing. Playing in London is as well. I’m really excited to actually come to Chicago, I’ve never been there before. Yeah I think it’s gonna be really cold, but it’ll be fun. My mom’s actually going to be there! She’s scheduled in a holiday around the tour. So she’s going to be at the Chicago show and the New York show. One place I really want to play at, which isn’t on this tour, but hopefully will be on future tours, is Nashville. I’m a big fan of country music.  I would love to go and let alone play, so that’d be really fun.

AM: Oh yeah so you haven’t been there at all? It’s very cool, so much to do there!

Alex Lahey: Yeah I’d really love to. I got super obsessed with that show Nashville. It’s like a guilty pleasure...everyone’s like [whispering] “do you watch Nashville?”

AM: Yeah for sure.  So talking more about SXSW, are there any artists that you’re hoping to catch? I know it’s always crazy and things will change, but is there anyone you saw that’s showcasing that you’re a fan of?

Alex Lahey: Yeah to be honest I haven’t really looked into it all that much. I know that there’s a lot of my friends coming from Australia to showcase.  To be honest I haven’t really explored it all that much. I’m kind of looking forward to just letting it happen, but at the same time it sounds like you need to be pretty organized. So maybe that’s something I’ll do when I get off this call is just go through everything. Have you got any hot tips?

AM: Yeah I just made a playlist for ANCHR for some bands playing...there’s a couple bands from Chicago called NE-HI and then Post Animal. They’re really cool, check them out if you can!

Alex Lahey: Yeah cool. I just saw a poster of a gig, I think BANKS was on it and Sleigh Bells-

AM: Yeah I just saw that today! BANKS is really good live, have you seen her?

Alex Lahey: I haven’t, but she’s pretty popular in Australia. I’ll definitely try to catch her. Sleigh Bells are definitely a band that I grew up with.  I mean it just seems to be spoiled for choice really. That’s a good point though, I need to make the most of it. I’ve just been worried about playing and that sort of thing, but I should just be more in the moment and enjoy it a bit more probably!

AM: I saw you recently also announced an Australian tour. The flight between The States and your home is pretty huge, so how do you stay entertained on those long haul flights without losing your mind?

Alex Lahey: Well actually--I’m not too bad with long flights. The thing that I love about it is that in a job where there’s always stuff going on, when you’re on one of those long haul flights, you can just be like I’m supposed sit here and let people feed me and watch movies for the next 25 hours to London. And like that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. So just allowing yourself to do that is actually really nice. So I think having an attitude like that is important...taking advantages of the movies for sure. Maybe bringing a book.  As for jetlag, I don’t really have any tips. I think you just need to struggle through it. I was actually just talking to Tegan and Sara about the jetlag thing. I was like does it ever get any easier?  They were like, "you just learn how to manage it.”  It’s literally like, I think Sara said jetlag is literally your body thinking it’s asleep when you’re supposed to be awake. You know, you feel nauseous, you can’t shit, you don’t wanna eat. And you wanna go to sleep, but you can’t sleep and it’s like fuck, you just have to deal with it. I think just sort of trying to manage that a bit better is something I’m currently exploring. We’ve only done it once before so bring on round 2!

AM: So talking about movies, you brought it up that you like to watch them on flights...I really like your video for “Wes Anderson” and obviously you have the nod to Mulholland Drive in “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me,” so I’m guessing you’re really into movies then?

Alex Lahey: I’m actually not hugely into movies. I get a lot out of watching them, but I don’t watch enough or that many. I went through a phase a couple of weeks ago where I was plowing through a few movies. I find that for some reason when I watch movies I start making notes and things that find themselves into songs. A movie that I watched recently that I was writing a lot of notes was Reality Bites. I’ve never seen that before. You know the old Winona Ryder one? I just thought it was really interesting. It’s the first movie that I’ve seen ever, that actually had a sharehouse in it. That’s what sharehouses are like, people are in and out...you know, everyone sort of  knows each other and has this weird relationship. I just thought that was really interesting, but I don’t watch a lot of films. You know, I’ve never seen Mulholland Drive. I’ve never actually seen it. It’s really funny, a family friend gave me a copy of it when the song kind of broke on radio on Australia. So I was like maybe I’ll actually finally watch it, and I put the DVD in the DVD player, and it turned out to be a wrong region code so I couldn’t actually watch it. I’m like maybe I’m never supposed to actually watch this movie. 

AM:That’s so funny, I’m a huge David Lynch fan... Have you seen any other Lynch films?

Alex Lahey: I don’t think so. It was really funny I was talking to my friend the other day and I made a reference to Twin Peaks. She was like “Have you actually seen Twin Peaks?” I have not... I know enough about it and the aesthetic is so iconic.  David Lynch’s and Wes Anderson’s aesthetic...it’s synonymous with the name. I’ve never actually engaged in much David Lynch stuff and I know what it is. I’m not a huge a movie buff...I definitely enjoy watching movies, but I definitely haven’t seen any that have the Oscar nominations or anything like that. I do love going back and watching old shit and I love watching documentaries as well. That’s what I gravitate towards.  

AM: Very cool! Do you have an all-time favorite movie? Or a couple? I know picking a favorite is always the hardest!

Alex Lahey: I love Shawshank Redemption, [it’s] one I tend to come back to.  I think that’s a really good film. There’s an Australian movie called Muriel's Wedding, which is like a classic. It’s a very early Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths film.  Back when they were super young, and it’s just this incredible depiction of your lowest socioeconomic Australian culture. The story and the friendship that takes place, which is this beautiful, beautiful friendship which takes place between these two women...at the core of it is a mutual love for ABBA. So there’s a lot of ABBA in it. I was reading this really interesting piece by Clementine Ford, who’s a writer in Australia and she was saying that the film Muriel's Wedding is a real centerpiece for feminist conversation because the nature of the friendship between these two women is so strong and they never hold being a woman against each other.  It was a really weird sort of reading into this film. Which is hilarious. And Clementine Ford is like actually it’s a feminist masterpiece. I thought that was really cool. I actually tend to watch more TV shows to be honest. Like I love Broad City.  I love, I grew up on The Simpsons. I love Seinfeld.  What else? The OC shaped me as a teenager. I love all that shit. Funnily enough when I was on the plane I actually watched the entire season 1 of Westworld.  It was pretty good! I think I actually watch more TV shows than movies, but I love film as an art form. I love what I can get out of film as a songwriter.

AM: Yeah, so speaking more about your songwriting, I love the sort of subtle humor and the realness and relatable lyrics that you have. So do you have any sort of songwriting habits or rituals? Or does it just kind of flow out whenever?

Alex Lahey: It’s actually been really difficult lately because of the touring demands to sit down and find time to write. Writing was always one of those things I just sort of did for fun, and it wasn’t one of those things like making time to do it. It was like I’m just hanging out at home, I’m gonna write a song. It’s happening less and less now because touring schedules and demands, which is a good problem to have.  But I definitely, I think most songwriters have the iPhone notes, snippets of stuff here and there.  That’s definitely something that I do. I guess writing collaboratively is something that I’m starting to play around with. Not necessarily for my own project, but just for fun.  I generally write on the computer. I write through Logic and I usually write entire arrangements. Funnily enough I usually tend to start with the drum beat, rather than the melody. That’s sort of the way I do it. Also just listening to good music. I think listening to good music is a skill in itself in certain ways. You know learning from other people is a humbling experience, and you do need to allow yourself to do it. I really enjoy it. If I really love a song by someone else, then the first thing I do is go and learn how to play it.  Because then you sort of understand it more.  That’s probably something that has seeped into my writing.

AM: That’s so cool, so are there any bands specifically that you’re listening to at the moment?

Alex Lahey: I’ve been listening to the new Marika Hackman song. She’s a singer songwriter from the UK and she just released a song called “Boyfriend.” Which is really, really cool. The film clip for it is awesome, and this great British band called The Big Moon actually back her on it. They’re really cool, they’re four girls from London. Big Moon is sick. Really cool, really great musicians. Awesome songs, really cool tones. Marika has got them backing her and the song’s really cool cause it’s… I remember I read this Pitchfork review of it. It said “Marika Hackman is out to steal your boyfriend,” but the song’s actually about hooking up with a girl who has a boyfriend.  So I was like wow, that’s an interesting take on it considering it’s so blatantly not that. I’ve actually been going back into some Tegan and Sara back catalog since doing that tour...listening to the So Jealous album and The Con and all that sort of stuff. There’s just some amazing songs on there. There’s an awesome band in Australia called Camp Cope, who are mates of mine. Georgia, who fronts it, writes amazing songs about cutting your hair or 911 conspiracies theories. You know, just the weirdest stuff, but she does it so poetically and beautifully. And so simply. I think that that’s a real art. Umm my girlfriend and I have been listening to a band called MUNA lately.

AM: Oh I love them!

Alex Lahey: Yeah which is really cool. My girlfriend is like these guys are like, there’s like this full on like HAIM and Prince thing going on, but it’s really ballsy and we’ve been listening to their record a lot. Umm and Margaret Glaspy, she’s awesome.  She’s really sick. Julien Baker is a friend of mine, who writes beautiful music.  The thing I love about Julien is she does something that I don’t, but that I probably wouldn’t...she does something with her music that I’m not really able to do with the way that I write my songs and the way that I express myself, but I connect with her songs so much. Which I think is like a really beautiful thing to have, especially as an artist.  When you really connect with something that maybe actually isn’t necessarily what you would do yourself. Julia Jacklin is also a really great Australian artist who I love. I’ve just realized I’ve just named all these shit hot women who are just like killing it, which is awesome. Which is great. That makes me feel really cool.

AM: Yeah these all really good bands! Last question, your EP came out last year. What has been the coolest thing you’ve gotten to do since it came out? Like a TV appearance or a show that you’ve played.

Alex Lahey: Oh, that’s a good question. So when the song ["You Don't Think You Like People Like Me"] broke on radio and just as the EP was about to come out, I won a competition to play Splendour on the Grass, which is like the biggest festival in Australia. It’s like 30,000 people, which is nothing compared to some of the festivals around the world, but in Australia it’s massive. Anyways I was really lucky and I got invited to open the main stage on the first day and it was incredible, so much fun. When I was at Splendour in the Grass, I met Tegan and Sara cause they were on the line up. We just met and they had no idea who I was. I was just a kid who went up and said thanks for teaching me how to play guitar through your records and I’m here now because of you guys, like I wouldn’t have learned guitar or how to write songs if I didn’t learn through listening to your stuff. And it was just this full circle thing. From there, they were like cool thanks and asked me to support them in the UK. I think that’s a really interesting and weird thing. I think it goes to show you just don’t know where one thing is gonna lead. I think that’s the most exciting thing about this job.  It just reminds you to always be grateful and kind and give people time. It’s something I’ll never forget.

Chicago, definitely go see Alex perform at Schubas in two weeks. It's guaranteed to be a night of great tunes and good vibes.  If you're going to SXSW, also check her out! See Alex's full tour schedule here, and stream B Grade University here.  

A Chat With: Charlotte OC

We recently caught up with the on-the-rise singer-songwriter Charlotte OC while she was over in New York City, fresh off her debut television appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Hailing from Blackburn, England, Charlotte creates music that blends her soulful, powerhouse vocals with dark pop melodies and deeply personal lyrics. Prior to the release of her debut full-length album, Careless People, we got to know the down-to-earth and relatable songstress. During our conversation, Charlotte revealed the story behind her The Great Gatsby-inspired album name, how she handled the culture shock of recording in Los Angeles, which soul singer inspired her, and how she deals with her darkest times. Find out all that and more in our chat with Charlotte OC...

The soulful sweetheart, Charlotte O.C

---

ANCHR Magazine: So I wanted to start out by saying congratulations on finishing your debut album! How are you feeling about releasing it out into the world?

Charlotte OC: Petrified. I don’t know if I should feel like that, but I just recently did the Seth Myers Show, and it was just the most petrifying thing in the world. I just said to my friend, I was like you’re baring your soul to quite a soulless room-- it’s like a studio and it just felt so bizarre. And that’s what it’s gonna feel like when I’m releasing the record, I don’t know. I’m scared.  But I’m also really excited.  

AM: Well I’m sure it will be great!

Charlotte OC: Thank you!

Album Artwork for Careless People

AM: So talking a little bit more about the album, I know you named it after a passage from The Great Gatsby, so how did that idea come around to you?

Charlotte OC: I was just reading the book, and then I watched the movie cause I just wanted to get as much of it as I could into my system, because I loved it so much. And just when I was watching the movie, it kind of like stood out to me... just a little bit more, just that line. After being so moved by the story, and what happened, the fact that she doesn’t even end it with him and she just kind of goes back with Tom.... Gatsby was just along for this massive ride, and it ended up costing his life. I just really related to that. I just think that that happens quite a lot. People just make you think that something is a really good idea, and then all of the sudden it’s not that fun for them anymore. You’re like “wait, it was still fun for me!” Like, why is it stopping? And I think that that’s really sad, but it happens constantly. I also was just kind of taking my own experiences of being careless, and caring a bit too much about stuff, and it just kind of felt right. I think the whole record is about me finding out what I care about and what I shouldn’t care about, and I think when you realize that someone’s being quite careless with your emotions, as much as it hurts, if you can actually see it, I think that’s like you taking 10 steps forward. Some people just don’t realize it, and that’s what the record is...me realizing and growing up a bit. Being present. I think by the end of the record I turned 25.  When I was a bit younger I never felt like I knew what was going on. It’s just about me finally becoming present. Hopefully you understand what I mean.

“I think when you realize that someone’s being quite careless with your emotions, as much as it hurts, if you can actually see it, I think that’s like you taking 10 steps forward.”

— Charlotte OC on her album's theme

AM: Yeah, totally! I’m about the same age as you so I totally get what you mean. So going back to your songwriting, did you draw inspiration from any other classic literature when you were writing the record, or is it mostly personal experiences that you draw from?

Charlotte OC: There’s a song called “In Paris,” which is about Princess Diana. That was the first song that I wrote where it wasn’t about me. I think I was quite young when that happened, and I didn't really understand it. Like the Twin Towers I was young when that happened as well, and I didn’t really know what was going on. It’s just one of the those things you think about when you’re a bit older and you think “what the actual fuck happened there?” It just moved me in a way, I just thought it was slightly romantic and glamorous, and just a bizarre thing to be happening to a royal family....and it’s such a huge all-over-the-papers kind of thing. [Princess Diana] just really fascinated me. I wrote it in her perspective of singing it to Prince Charles like, “I know you don’t even really care for me, but I don’t really want to be your enemy.”  That was the first song I wrote [like that]. Then weirdly, after it happened, after I wrote it, the Paris attacks happened. It felt kind of connected to that, that song has got quite a lot of heavy meaning.  

AM: Oh, very cool. It’s crazy how you said right after you wrote it the Paris attacks happened. I feel like that will happen a lot, where you’ll write something and it’s very relevant later on and it takes on new meanings.

Charlotte OC: Oh yeah, it happens constantly!

AM: So talking about the recording process then, you recorded out in LA actually. I read that your writing is often inspired by your hometown in Northern England, which is totally different to LA, so how was it recording out there?

Charlotte OC: It was weird! I think it was good for me. I think it’s good to feel weird when you’re making a record. I don’t think you should feel comfortable, and I didn’t feel comfortable. I still feel weird when I go to LA, and like it’s just I think as somebody from the Northwest of England, which is quite a... I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just, LA and the Northwest of England are so different.  The type of person is very different too, and yeah, it was bizarre. I also met Tim Anderson, who I work with, and he’s my producer, and his studio is in the heat of LA. If you walk inside his studio, it’s all black and it’s got like, it’s quite spooky, like it shouldn’t be in LA. That’s what, I think that’s why it worked for me...because the studio wasn’t like an LA studio. That’s why I think it just worked. It was like this little safe haven for me. It was was interesting. I don’t know if I would do it again, but it was definitely interesting.

AM: Yeah, so how was it working with Tim. Would you still continue to work with him?

Charlotte OC: Yeah, I love working with him...totally! I just love working with him, and he’s a great friend of mine. He’s my A&R guy, which sounds weird, but he started working as an A&R rep at Harvest after we started working together. It sounds weird, but it kind of works in our favor at the same time. Because I’ve always worked with him.  We work really well together.

For fans of Izzy Bizu, Lapsley, and Jessie Ware... you have got to check out Charlotte's latest single "Medicine Man."  

AM: Very cool, what was the most culture shock thing coming to LA, then?

Charlotte OC: Just that there’s nobody walking anywhere! I feel a bit petrified walking anywhere, it’s weird! Like everyone just stays a bit safe in their cars, and everything is just air conditioned. And that’s not good for my voice. It’s a bit like, I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t drive either, and I’m learning, but at the time I didn’t drive and I found that quite hard. There’s a lot of homeless people, and it’s such a glitzy and glamorous place. One minute there’s an amazing house and then the next minute there’s Skid Row. It’s just like...I don’t know, bizarre. It was really extreme.

AM: Yeah for sure. Well on a slightly more positive note, who would you consider some of your musical influences?

Charlotte OC: First, I think my favorite vocalist is Aretha Franklin. She...have you ever watched the Muscle Shoals documentary? Watch it, it’s amazing! But there was a bit about her and how her journey started, and how nobody really knew what to do with her. She had this amazing voice, but nothing really made sense. They had all these songs for her, and it just wasn’t connecting. I think that she may have just found herself and it all really just fell into place. I think that’s what makes a good artist. When you just kind of, figure out stuff, instead of being told what to do. She just knew what to do, and I feel like I could have related to that. Plus she’s got the best voice in the world I think. I grew up listening to The Talking Heads. I’m constantly inspired by the Stop Making Sense album and the film that they made with it.  It’s the music video-- have you seen it?

AM: No, I haven’t!

Charlotte OC: Oh please, write that down, you have to watch it. It’s Stop Making Sense and it’s live, the whole album. They filmed it--it’s a show, but it’s also just incredible. The whole way through his suit just keeps getting bigger and bigger and his head keeps getting smaller and smaller. It’s just incredible, and all live...I love it so, so much. So that inspired me when I was younger...I just used to watch it over and over again. I used to love Freddie Mercury…”Bohemian Rhapsody.”  What else? Lou Reed...Leonard Cohen. I think Cohen lyrically, how he paints pictures, it’s really amazing. I like lyrics like that. I don’t like throw away lyrics.

AM: Very cool. So talking more about your live show, I know you’ve played SXSW and Gov Ball in NYC, which is awesome! Are there any other festivals on your bucket list to play?

Charlotte OC: I’d love to do Glastonbury I think. That would be my ultimate ever. Pyramid Stage...Straight to the top [laughs]. That’s not gonna happen anytime soon, but that’s just the dream. I’d quite like to do Coachella, even though I find it quite a bizarre festival. It’s a strange one, and I didn’t really enjoy myself when I was there, but I’d really like to do it. I think it’s different when you’re not playing. I always find festivals really hard when I’m not playing and just wanting to play. I’ve got Secret Garden Festival coming up, which is a great one in the UK. It’s amazing, especially if the weather’s nice! I can’t really think of any at the moment, but Glastonbury definitely.  

AM: Yeah, that’s like the top festival. So are there any songs in particular that you’re excited to play for a live audience?

Charlotte OC: Yeah, I’m excited to sing “Running Back To You.”  That’s always a feel good one. It’s so much fun to do, I feel great after I’ve done it. I’m excited to release “Shell.”  That’s the next single, which I’m just excited for people to hear. “Where It Stays,” that’s a ballad on the record.  

AM: Do you amp that one up when you play it live?

Charlotte OC: Yeah, exactly.  I have fond memories of writing it, and I’m really proud of it.

AM: Are there any cities or countries that you’re really hoping to play this year?

Charlotte OC: Yeah, I love doing shows in America. I’d like to do some more over here.  I’ve got some shows coming up in Berlin on the 21st of March, which I’m excited about. Just anywhere really. I’d quite like to do some shows in Poland. I’ve never been, but I’d really like to go. I heard they’re amazing. Like they’re just music lovers and they just go for it.

AM: Very cool. So I was reading when you first started playing guitar, you were actually upset about it and dreading your first lesson at 15 years old. So if you weren’t doing music, what would be your backup career choice?

Charlotte OC: I totally don’t know...I don’t like to think about it! It makes me feel a bit sick. It’s just always been like that, I’ve got this constant feeling of discomfort if I’m not doing it.  I think that I would always be writing...writing music. If not for me, for other people. I do love writing music and it’d probably still be something in music.

AM: When did you write your first original song?

Charlotte OC: At fifteen. It’s called “One of the Angels,” and it’s about death. It’s super depressing, but my mum and dad loved it!

AM: Speaking of depressing, your big single out now is called “Darkest Hour.”  What advice would you give to any of your fans who are going through their darkest hour?

Charlotte OC: Talk to somebody. Keep talking about it, get it off your chest. Don’t bottle it up. I think that’s the biggest...silence feeds the biggest darkness. Being able to talk to someone is the most important.  

AM: Ok now last question, a lighter question...are there any other bands you’re into at the moment?

Charlotte OC: I’ve been listening to a lot of Echo & The Bunnymen, which is an old band from Liverpool. I don’t listen to a lot of newer bands, but let me pull up my Spotify.  I’ve listened to The xx, obviously they’re not new, but that last album was incredible! There’s a girl called Sigrid and she’s got a song called “Don’t Kill My Vibe.” I can only listen to it once, like I understand that it’s a good song, but I can’t listen to it a lot. I think Rag’N’Bone Man is great. I love him, he’s amazing. Sampha’s new album is brilliant! I haven’t listened to the new Ryan Adams album but I’m going to!

---

Speaking of new albums, Charlotte OC's debut is now available for pre-order here, prior to the release on March 31st.  We've been listening to it all this week, and every song is just incredible.

Careless People Tracklist:

1. Blackout

2. Darkest Hour

3. Medicine Man

4. River

5. Shell

6. Choice

7. Running Back To You

8. Higher

9. I Want Your Love

10. Where It Stays

11. In Paris

You can also keep up with all of Charlotte's tour news on her website. More dates are on the way soon. 

---

Get to Know: Jude Shuma

A couple of weeks ago, I finally caught up with Chicago musician Jude Shuma, after being impressed with his set at The Empty Bottle back in December and hearing good things about him from other local bands. We first met up on a Thursday evening at Sip coffee shop, but decided to move to the bar across the street, where we ended up chatting over a different type of brew. While hanging out with Jude, I not only got the scoop on his creative process, his influences, and news about his upcoming release, but things also got a little philosophical and weird (in the best possible way).  Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about the charismatic singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and part-time exterminator that is Jude Shuma.

The Renaissance man himself, Jude Shuma. 

---

His grandma's guitar and his parents' records got him into music

"I found my grandma's guitar under my mom’s bed... started playing it, had a few lessons and then I bought a little 8-track recorder. From there, I just kinda… I wanted to write songs, so I started writing songs and kinda laid down one track, and then laid down the next," Jude explains when I asked what got him into music. Now, more than 15 years later, Jude says he's collected more than enough instruments and gear to start his own home studio, saying, "It’s kind of been like a ball and chain, cause you have all this gear and you need the space and the studio to record. Living in an urban area like Chicago, it’s really hard to find a space…you can get a rehearsal space with other bands, but then you’ve got fucking metal bands next door to you and you can’t record an acoustic guitar. So it’s been kinda like, the past four years I’ve been bouncing around and finding new spots."  More to come on his home studio later...

As far as his sound, Jude credits records from the 60's and 70's with influencing him, saying, "I’ve inherited like 700 vinyl from my mom, dad, and my aunt and uncle. All those records, it’s all like the 60's. I’ve been listening to a lot of T. Rex. Anything out of the 60's and 70's and like that whole movement. Music was a lot simpler and more melodically driven those days."  

---

His next album focuses on the bittersweet, the baritone, and Boogie Nights

Right now, Jude is working away in his home studio trying to wrap up a new album, with a targeted release date in the spring. Talking more about the new material, he says, "I started singing in a lower register, where a lot of the other stuff I sing in a higher register, it’s more of a falsetto. Now I’m kinda starting to embrace my baritone."  In addition to his shift in vocal range, Jude says he's adding in horns, violin, and synthesizers to these new songs, but he's still trying to stay true to the indie, low-fi sound.  "I’m using a tape machine, doing everything on tape. Everything is analog so it has that white noise and saturation to it," Jude added about the recording process. 

Talking more about the album's theme, Jude says, "I’m gonna name the album Sugar Mountain. [That's] not released yet, but that’s gonna be the name. I’m pretty stoked on it. I’m obsessed with sugar…My mom had diabetes when she was pregnant with me, so I feel like there might be a correlation between how much sugar I intake every day. It’s more just that we live in a world of vices and turmoil and chaos every day. And sugar or whatever your sweetness... it’s bittersweet…"  

Jude also confirmed that although he's written and recorded about 20 songs, only 6 of them have made the final cut so far, including tracks called "Lemonade" and "Cosmic Feeling." "There’s one called 'Boogie Nights,' Jude continues.  "You seen Boogie Nights? It’s an ode to that film and the ridiculousness of that film," saying he imagines his tune "Boogie Nights" to be the song that was supposed to play after the final scene of the film, as the end credits roll in. 

---

“Music was a lot simpler I feel like and more melodically driven those days. Now a days I feel like if you have a fat beat, it doesn’t matter.”

— Jude on the evolution of songwriting

He splits his time between recording and killing rats... in Billy Corgan's old house

"It's Billy Corgan's old house, totally random...it’s in the garage, they built a room inside the garage. There’s two doors and it’s completely isolated. So like it’s 4 in the morning…I’ll stay up til 5:00 AM, smoking cigarettes, and there’s no circulation in there...there’s no windows. I’m just baking it in there, smoking weed, and just recording. The tape machine is all fucking cracked out, all the microphones are just saturated in smoke…it’s good," Jude revealed about his home studio.  

"The studio is called Rat House studio, because I have rats," he continues, admitting he's had to get a pellet gun and live trap to keep the rats out of the studio.  "If you wanna put it in a nutshell, my time is split between recording music, and then killing rats," Jude admits, while also adding that his growing tally of rat exterminations does get to him sometimes.  "I don’t eat meat, but this is different…I don’t want a rat walking in my house. I feel like there shouldn’t be a difference, like you should cherish the fact that it’s got a heartbeat, but I have the conscious thought before I shoot it," he says.  Jude joked that he may write a song called "Rat King" as an ode to all of the fallen rats of his studio. "I feel like it’d have to be a Leonard Cohen style song. You know like, spoken word," he added. 

---

He prefers producing and recording to playing live

"I find more pleasure in…and I like touring and playing live, but I find a lot of pleasure in recording and producing. Like sitting in the studio for hours...I kind of like look at myself as more of a Harry Nilsson. Check him out, that’s one of my possibly all-time favorite artists. He did the same thing The Beatles did. The Beatles hustled their ass and played live for how many years, and then they just cut it and just recorded records. I feel like I get more out of sitting in the studio, being creative," Jude gushed while chatting about his love of producing.  

While he loves producing, at the moment he acknowledges that he can't really take on production work for other artists, although he wouldn't rule it out in the future. "I think once I finish this record, I’ll be more in control. People open studios, and then they can’t chose who they get to record there because they need to accept business to keep the money flowing. I wanna be able to be a little picky.  I want to work on music I like. I’ve had homies hit me up and it’s like I dig their music, but it’s time," he says.  Although he plays live shows with three musicians called Blaze, Blade, and Church, Jude currently plays everything from drums to bass by himself in the studio, saying that he often finds himself running back and forth between instruments.  

Jude also chatted about challenging himself as his own producer. "You ever heard of Brian Eno? He had a deck of cards for the recording studio, and whenever you hit a rut, you pull out a card and flip it.  And it will tell you something to do, like one of them that I pulled once was like 'be extravagant' in your vocal performance.  So I’ve been doing that too.  I’ve been a little more extravagant and obnoxious…super obnoxious.  I'll start singing in different voices,"  he revealed.  

---

He's been on HBO, ABC, and the CW

Or at least, his songs have been used on TV shows on those networks. Nowadays, it's very difficult for an artist to make money off of their recorded music, with the rise of streaming services. Sync licenses for TV shows and movies are one of the best ways for musicians to get paid for their recorded work, and luckily for Jude, his music has appeared in a handful of new shows.  "I got three licenses, in the last month, which is dope and came out of nowhere.  It’s a show on ABC called Quantico, this show on the CW called Riverdale, and then an indie film called Can’t Say No. So that kind of helped boost me back up, like OK, I’m making money off music now and I can eat beyond bread.  I live off bread and avocado," Jude revealed about his recent success.  

He also talked about his first ever license, for a show on HBO, admitting he thought he was being catfished at first. "I thought it was a joke. The girl hit me up on Soundcloud. I was like for real? You’re a music consultant for HBO? But it turned out to be legit. It’s gone to show that it’s working, like whatever’s happening is working. I didn't have a lot of publicity on the last release, and now between those two shows that already aired, I’ve seen jumps in [plays]," Jude said. 

---

He doesn't have a back up plan

Speaking of success, Jude has dedicated everything he has into making his career in music take off, even if that means getting shit from his family members.  "I had a conversation with my dad…I’ve had this conversation with multiple people. A lot of people don’t want you to be where you are. They want to glorify you and support you like 'wow, I’m stuck at a 9-5 hating my life.'  Fuck 9-5, but those same people don’t want to see you succeed to a certain extent because then they’re really questioning themselves.  They wanna put you into the 9-5 world so then it justifies their own life and their own existence. Like 'do what I’m doing so then I feel better about what I’m doing.'  My dad and I sat down and talked and he was like yeah you know, do you have a plan B? I was like no, there is no plan b," Jude says about the struggles of being a musician in a corporate-driven country.  He adds, "If I take two eggs out of my basket, instead of having twelve, I now have ten.  Those two eggs are gonna go to something else. I need to give my 100 percent to one thing and I’ll succeed. I’ll do it. It might not happen overnight, but I’m gonna go all in. If I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it right. Cause if you half-ass it, you’re not gonna succeed. Then it’s a hobby."  

He continues on to say how much it bothers him that society only seems to correlate worth with wealth. "It sucks that in America that we sort of have a direct correlation between somebody’s worth and the size of their wallets. Like if somebody’s making more money we hold them in a higher light or higher tier than other people. Like you see someone super poor…maybe he made the conscious decision to be poor and live on the street, but if you discredit that human being immediately... I’ve sat down with homeless people across the country. I’ll sit there and I’ll smoke a cigarette with them. You can hear a crazy story about somebody, and your life can just get a little more enriched."

Diving even further into the subject of choosing to make a living in an artistic industry, Jude says, "Life without art would be really boring. And if you don’t try, you’ll never succeed. One of my homies from back home just like stopped doing music. Friends that I really thought had more talent than anybody I knew, they’d write amazing songs…they’d be like 'yeah, I don’t wanna do it.'  The music industry kinda sucks, and you’ve gotta play the game, you know. You have to be somewhat chauvinistic."  

---

 He's got the gift of gab

Throughout our chat, the topics sometimes strayed off to completely random topics, including the Georgian language and Mark Wahlberg's dick (to be fair, that came up while talking about Boogie Nights). While we talked about a slightly less scandalous subject like our favorite Chicago venues, the eviction of the legendary Double Door came up.  Jude mentioned he heard rumors that Double Door's space will be turning into a Baby Gap, continuing, "If that does become a Gap Baby, or whatever it's called, that’s just a red flag that gentrification has ended, that point…it has started and it has ended. Ukrainian Village is coming into pretty hard gentrification right now. The crime is skyrocketing too. You're not safe anywhere in this city. Doesn't matter where you go. I don’t know, everything’s fucked." 

Jude also brought up technology and the global market that we have at our fingertips as entrepreneurs and consumers, saying, "I think our lives have been so pivotal. Like the span of time in human life. If you look at like the coming of the internet and globalization, and the way everything has now become a global market and the way in which everything and everybody is now intertwined. We can communicate…there are no borders now. It used to be super limited. Your news would be your newspaper or word of mouth. Now you can go on the internet and check news for every single country, every single place in the world. We are like hitting a place in human history. What a time to be alive."  

Jude acknowledged these tangents, saying , "Yeah, I'm a talker. I feel like that’s one gift I have. Music is maybe number one...actually number one might be the gift of gab. My girlfriend gives me shit about that all of the time. I’ll walk up to a coffee shop counter. I’ll be like how’s your day and it just opens up." 

Oh, if you're wondering, Jude officially broke the record for longest interview in ANCHR history, with a running time around an hour. 

---

As he mentioned, Jude is currently spending most of his time in the studio for the upcoming record, Sugar Mountain, but he says he'll move onto album artwork and booking a summer tour as soon as it's finished. Stay up to date with all of the Jude news by liking his Facebook page, and listen to his latest EP, Biggest Hits, here. 

A Chat With: darkDARK

Duo Genevieve Vincent and Chris James make up the new electro-pop act darkDARK.  The Los Angeles and Austin based pair have a debut EP on the way next month, and they've already been gaining traction with their single "Restless," featuring Haley Bonar.  Before their EP release, we chatted to Genevieve and Chris about their start in music, their favorite spots in LA and Austin, their 2017 goals, and their idea of a perfect date night. They're currently working on a Valentine's Day themed playlist for us too, so keep your eyes out for that, but in the meantime, get to know more about darkDARK: 

darkDARK is Genevieve Vincent and Chris James.

ANCHR Magazine: Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into making music, and how the two of you started this project?

darkDARK: Hey! Definitely. The two of us have been pretty immersed in music most of our lives as producers, composers, and songwriters. We met through a mutual friend and started working together in the commercial composing/music licensing industry, crossing paths many times through work before jumping into darkDARK. Our first artistic project together was a remix for Universal. In working on that track, we realized that our tastes and writing styles mesh in a pretty unique way and we had this short hand and a lot of fun working on stuff. So we jumped into writing what would later become the Heathered EP.

AM: What’s the story behind your name?

darkDARK: Our name came to Genevieve in a dream. We both liked it and responded well to the symmetry, so that was that!

AM: Who are some of your influences?

darkDARK: It’s a bit all over the place. We both love film scoring, especially horror, thriller, and sci-fi, so John Carpenter is someone we both admire greatly - especially now that he’s touring, and has made that crossover. Other favorites are the classic Bernard Herrmann scores, they’re just brilliant.  Also, we love bands with strong and haunting front-women -Beach House, Phantogram, Cocteau Twins, The Pretenders, Sinéad O'Connor, Sade, we could go on… Textures and detail are an important part of our sound – so we love producers like Amon Tobin, Com Truise, Flume, DJ Snake, STRFKR, to name a few.

AM: What can you tell us about the debut EP that’s dropping next month?

darkDARK: We’re super excited about our EP, Heathered.  It took the better part of the year to write, record, and mix it (which we did ourselves). We wanted it to take you in different directions emotionally. We spend a lot of time picking out each sound and using production to try to make each song an environment for you to step into. The record revolves around relationships - everything from the first moments with someone, which are so magical and fleeting, to the times where you've forgotten who you both are.  The name Heathered ...memories and moments between two people are like specs and shades.

AM: How collaborative is the writing process between the both of you?

darkDARK: We live in different cities - so our process works around that.  Since we’re rarely in the same room, we pass files back and forth on Dropbox constantly. One of us will start something, and the other will take over.  When writing lyrics we try to collaborate as much as possible, but we tweak and shift things as needed when we are together. Our aesthetic is pretty detailed, so we take our time dialing things in.  Our writing process has definitely streamlined after working out all the details on this EP. One thing we’ve found that absolutely helps our overall songwriting process - we imagine each track as a place, or setting… then we talk about that setting together, imagining what it looks like in our heads.  That way, we have a collective vision/inspiration that we can always refer back to when honing in on the track.

AM: I read that you’re based between LA and Austin, so what are some of your favorite things to do in both cities, like your favorite venues or places to eat?

darkDARK: Chris’ studio in Austin is on the eastside, so we tend to hang over there. It's just blocks from Switched On, one of the best vintage/analog synth stores in the country - so that’s an obvious playground for us when we’re not writing.  The food over there is also great - tacos everywhere (Las Trancas, Vera Cruz, any stand) and good coffee spots and bars (Figure 8, Quickie-Pickie, Flat Track, Stay Gold). Genevieve’s studio is in the valley, so when we’re there we focus on eating as much sushi as we can (Sugarfish, Brothers, Little Brothers) between songs. Favorite venues in LA are No Name, Complex,  Hollywood Forever, The Ace, Hotel Café...there are so many good ones!

AM: What are some of your goals as a band for 2017? Can we expect tour news soon?

darkDARK: You can expect more new music and collaborations with some great guest vocalists. We’d love to tackle a film score together, which is something we’ve only done as individuals so far. We’re also working on setting up some showcases - no tour news as of yet, but we’ll keep you posted!

AM: What other bands/artists are you listening to at the moment?

darkDARK: Carpenter Brut, Empress Of, Sampha, Childish Gambino, the new DIANA record, H.E.R., the new Tribe Called Quest.

AM: Since you’re making us a Valentine’s Day themed playlist, what’s your idea of a good date night?

darkDARK: Sushi and sake.  If all else fails, refer to the date scene from Better Off Dead where John Cusack plays the saxophone.

AM: On the same subject of Valentine’s Day, if your music was a conversation heart message, what would it say?

darkDARK: Feel something.

Stay tuned for the playlist from Genevieve and Chris, but in the meantime listen to their newest track "Shelter," which just dropped this week!

You can also keep up with the latest from the duo by visiting their Facebook Page.

A Chat With: Overcoats

Last week, Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell (AKA Overcoats) chatted with me from a cafe in New York City.  “It’s lit in here,” the girls joked before we started our conversation that covered topics like their debut album and upcoming tours, as well as their influences and their fateful meeting in college. For fans of Lucius, Sylvan Esso, and Empress Of, the duo seamlessly fuses elements of electronic and folk music to create a heavenly listening experience.  Find out all about the debut album Young and what else we can expect from Hana and JJ in 2017 by reading our chat with Overcoats:

Photo Credit: Lex Vøight

ANCHR Magazine:  Can you tell me a little bit about how you met and started making music together?

Overcoats: We met about 6 years ago, during our first couple months at college. I think we met...well we lived in the same dorm, and we had a class together.  Pretty soon after that we started singing together, but only in a very informal, kind of like in the bathroom of our dorm, like singing Amy Winehouse or like The Dixie Chicks. Then by the end of freshman year we were in a cappella together, but it wasn’t until our senior year that we tried writing together, like original songs. The first song that we wrote was “Little Memory,” which is the first song that we ever put out on our debut EP, and it’s on our album now. We were like “OK, this is fun, let’s do more” and then it just kind of spun off from there.

Tracklist for Young

AM: Very cool, so speaking of the debut album, you just announced it in the last month. So how are you feeling about finally getting it out into the world and sharing it?

Overcoats: We’re feeling really good. We’ve been working on these songs for a couple years now, and we were deep in the studio recording them from like August to November. We put a lot of work and feelings and time...blood sweat and tears...into the album.  It’s our first album as well so it was very important to us that we have like no regrets with the final product, and that’s what happened.  We’re super excited for it to come out and for people to hear what we’ve been working on. I feel like we’ve been MIA for a while, cause our last release was basically a year ago. We’re just really happy that we finally get to share this project. For so long it was just like the two of us working away like busy bees and now finally everyone is gonna be like “Oh, that’s where they were.”  It’s funny too cause a lot of the songs were written a while ago, like within the past two years, but a lot of them are feeling really relevant again. Like a lot of the songs...[there's] a lot of transitions, a lot about gender and power roles.

AM: Oh wow, it’s like you predicted the future!

Overcoats: Yeah, well we couldn’t have predicted this...but I think it’s nice that the songs still resonate and they can take on meaning with time...maybe create an uplifting message for people. Especially for women growing up.

AM: Yeah, I was going to ask if you could identify an overall theme or concept for the album, but it sounds like it’s transitioning encouraging female strength.

Overcoats: Yeah, the album is about...it’s called Young, and it’s about growing up. More specifically how you grow up with parents and you kind of end up sort of either reacting really strongly against the way you were raised, or you kind of replicate the things you observed when you were younger.  It’s just kind of about observing our fathers go through the world, and our mothers go through the world and learning how to be a woman in this world and kind of seeing the world through the eyes of your parents. Then finally seeing it through your own eyes.

AM: Nice, I can definitely relate to that. So speaking a little bit more about growing up, when did you first really get into singing? I know you said you first started singing together for fun, but growing up, what was your first musical memory?

Overcoats (JJ Speaking): I always used to say to people that I didn’t start singing til college. Which is true in the sense that I didn’t perform or sing with other people until college, but growing up I was like nobody could shut me up. I was literally always singing, like on these 6 hour car rides.  My parents would be like “this is lovely, but could you please be quiet.”  Now looking back, I can’t really live without singing, this is my life. It kind of seemed like off the beaten path for me, like I had no notion of wanting to be a musician until Overcoats started as a project. I was like “oh this is probably the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done”  Hana’s been like very musical her whole life. She’s a talented guitar player and plays piano and always sung. I think that that is a really nice thing about us. I have no training and Hana comes from slightly different musical background.

“ It’s just kind of about observing our fathers go through the world, and our mothers go through the world and learning how to be a woman in this world and kind of seeing the world through the eyes of your parents. Then finally seeing it through your own eyes.”

— Overcoats on their album theme

AM: So who would you consider to be some of your influences?

Overcoats: We love some kind of classic folk and harmonies, like Simon and Garfunkel, The Staves... we love Joseph. We also really love a lot of electronic music, like Sylvan Esso, Chet Faker, Empress Of, Tei Shi, Jamie XX. We also really love really just center field electronic, like Disclosure or Skrillex. We both like really diverse genres. We try to bring everything together.

AM: Yeah, I can definitely hear some of that, like the really beautiful harmonies is really centric to folk, but some of your melodies or beats are more electronic, so I love that contrast. Who produced your album, then?

Overcoats: Going off of our desire to meld different genres together, we had two different, well three essentially work on this album with us. Preliminarily we worked with a friend, Myles Avery who had produced our EP. He does a lot of experimental stuff, and he’s really great to work with in terms of finding unique sounds and basically deciding the pallet that we wanted to work with. Then for actually recording the album, we worked with Nicolas Vernhes and Arthur Ashin [Autre Ne Veut] . Nicolas is very kind of indie rock, so he is super well versed at organic instrumentation and amazing at recording vocals so we wanted to work with him on that aspect. Then Autre Ne Veut is like experimental electronic, so we kind of like went back and forth between their studios, which in retrospect, was very chaotic.  And not normal. But I think that we had to do that to get the exact sound that we wanted, because we did want to mix these two realms. Each of them had a particular skillset that we wanted to tap into. Yeah, it was definitely a challenge figuring out how to collaborate with 2+ producers.

AM: I’m sure it will be really cool though, hearing the finished product.  I also really loved the “Cherry Wine” cover, so what made you choose to cover that song? Anything in particular that drew you to that song, or Hozier specifically?

Overcoats: Yeah, I think Hozier’s been like a big inspiration for us for a while. Especially because we actually lived in Dublin for 3 months right at the beginning of our music careers, right after graduating college, we just up and left and went to Ireland.  I think the live music scene there is super special. It’s super respected and just honest and vulnerable, and I think Hozier really embodies that. The world caught onto that, a vulnerable man singing, amazing harmonies and just beautiful guitar parts. We ended up playing a festival in Ireland that Hozier was headlining. It was really cool to at least pretend we were in part of the same scene as him. I think that that song...I mean, we like all of his music, but that one was a really pretty song for us to sing together. The lyrics, especially, I think he had something different in mind when he wrote the song, but we found the lyrics to be kind of an ode to friendship.  Like the chorus is like “the way she shows me I’m hers and she’s mine, open hand or closed first would be fine,” so it’s kind of like I’ll take you in whatever way. So that was meaningful to us in that sense as well. We were traveling through Ireland and starting a band, and we had each other as our homes. So it’s a song that’s been really important to us.  

AM: Yeah, that’s a cool interpretation of the lyrics.  Talking a little bit more about your tour. You’re touring with Tennis and have some headline dates. Are there any cities you’re especially excited about?

Overcoats[We’re] excited for the whole tour. We’re really excited to go to new cities that we haven’t played yet, and we’re really excited to see old fans that we haven’t seen for a year. We’re excited to say hi and for them to see where we’re at now. That’s really special. The west coast will be cool, we’ve never played the west coast. The days aren’t announced yet.

AM: Cool, and then last question, are there any other new bands you’re listening to? Anything new this year?

Overcoats: Yeah, who are we into right now…? In New York we’ve been seeing a lot of really good music just in local bars around here. Hideout... they’re a small band but I think they’re going places. This is like the hardest question! I feel like I gave them all away already, our influences. Oh, oh, Margaret Glaspy we love. Caroline Smith! Obviously, we played with her [in Chicago].

Young comes out April 21st.  Preorder the debut here.

Chicago, Overcoats will play Thalia Hall with Tennis on March 9th.  For all the rest of their tour dates, head here.

A Chat With: COTE

Brooklyn based singer-songwriter Taryn Randall (AKA COTE) took some time to chat with us this week about her "classic songwriter" influences, her migration to New York City, how she spends her free time in Brooklyn, and what's next for her as far as music and tour. During our conversion, COTE mentioned she's already drawn some comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, which definitely comes across in her latest single "Cruel."  While she's only got four songs out at the moment, each have their own distinct vibe, like the hypnotic and delicate "Golden Hour," or "London,"  with its blend of synths and twangy guitars. Get to know more about this fresh and diverse artist by reading our chat with COTE:

COTE, courtesy of Danger Village. 

---

ANCHR Magazine: So do you want to start just by telling me a little about yourself and how you got into making music? All that fun stuff!

COTE: Yeah, totally. So I have been working on music for a long time. I was in a few bands in LA, nothing that ever really took off or even that I really put that much into. I think I’ve been in the process of writing always, really. I did a lot of musical theater in high school, I have a lot of people in my family who are musical. It’s kind of been a part of my life from the beginning. With this album, I kinda started writing when I moved to New York, which was almost five years ago now. I wrote for about four years, started recording. Yeah, it kind of all came together, even though it wasn’t necessarily my original intent. After writing for a while, it just sort of felt like “OK, I have all of these songs” and that sort of became the next step.

AM: Very cool, so did you feel a little bit more inspired after moving to New York?

COTE: Yeah, definitely! For sure, I felt like when I was in LA, I was kind of writing what I thought people wanted to hear. I was a lot more focused on what was going to get a good reaction or if it was “cool enough.” When I moved to New York, it was so much more this therapeutic process, and because I was writing without the intention of anyone ever really hearing these songs, I really just wrote what I wanted to write. That went into melody, that went lyrics, and for me it was this transitional time. That’s what this album ended up being I think because I was a little more free of expectations of other people and what I thought they wanted to hear. I was able to be a lot more honest and write something that really felt like a good picture of myself.

AM: Yeah, it’s always best to stay true to yourself even if it’s hard at first. That’s typically when you’ll feel best about your work!

COTE: Yeah, absolutely!

"London"- COTE 

AM: So do you have any sort of songwriting habits, like is there a certain time that you find yourself writing, or inspiration hits you at random points?

COTE: Yeah you know it’s funny, I almost always start with melody. So that will come to me at really any time. I mean there’s been times where I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, grabbed my phone and just recorded a melody that was in my head. I also constantly forget everything that I come up with, so I have to record everything all the time. I always just start with melody and if something just feels like a natural fit then yeah I’ll put lyrics to it. There’s times when I’m really intentional and I’ll say “I’m going to sit down and write a song” and kind of mess around with some chords, and if I hear something I’ll go from there. But most of the time, it comes from me just doing my day to day life.

AM: Do you draw inspiration from any other art mediums at all, like film?

COTE: Yeah I feel like I’m constantly looking and open to that inspiration, though I don’t know if it’s ever intentional. I don’t feel that I’m seeking it out, but there are things that are always striking me. I feel like so much of my writing inspiration just comes from other music, whatever I’m hearing. Whether that’s current bands, usually it’s older bands. Or just older compositions. I really am just very melody driven, so there will be things from classical [music] or opera that will kind of drive me into a feeling or a mood and then I can kind of write from that place. 

AM: Yeah, very cool. So are there any particular bands that you look to as influences? Either current or older ones?

COTE: Yeah, I love Fleetwood Mac, I know that I get a lot of comparisons there. I think they’re awesome and forever amazing. I love, like lyrically, I really love everything Paul Simon does. I’m a big Paul Simon fan. I listen to a lot of older music, so Springsteen, Neil Young, all of those guys are kinda my jam.

AM: For sure, the classic songwriters!

COTE: Yeah, I think that’s really like the position that I come from. Yes like you said, the classic songwriter place. It’s interesting, there are a lot of bands that I love. I mean current people that I love are Jenny Lewis, War on Drugs, and The National... I love. Just like good rock’n’roll! Whether that’s older or current, those are my biggest...I love all of them. But other than that, I’m not insanely aware of the current music scene. I’m trying to get a lot more into it, but it’s really overwhelming and there’s like 50 thousand genres and directions and there’s a lot more out there now. I just end up reverting back to my old favorites most of the time.

AM: Nothing wrong with that! So what’s the story behind the name of this project [COTE]. I know you mentioned you’ve been in other bands so where did you come to find this name?

COTE: So for COTE, well the French definition of “Cote” is coast, so I really liked that. But I was looking, when I was kind of coming along to that I found that one of the English definitions is “to pass by” and so I felt like the English version kind of fit me better. There’s been a lot of transitions and moving and life changes and career changes and all of these things that were kind of encompassing this whole process of writing for me. This album, all of that, was a big change, and so it felt like that name was appropriate.

AM: Oh yeah that makes so much sense!

COTE: Yeah, there’s always going to be some intent and then there’s also like “Oh, it just kind of sounded good.” You know, it’s gotta be a combination of both.

AM: Yeah, so then is there any other news coming up, like a tour or full length [album] in the works?

COTE: Yeah, so right now we’re gearing up. We’re trying to get a show on the calendar for probably March or April. The album will be out this year. It is done, so there’s a full length. I don’t have word on timing yet...there’s a lot of decisions to be made. Yeah, it’s been such an interesting process for me. Obviously I’ve never really done this before in this capacity so there’s so many people involved and meetings and conversations. We will eventually narrow down everything, and the album will be out so…"this year” is all I have for you. But there’s a show in New York, definitely in the spring. I would assume once the album comes out probably a small tour, probably nothing too big. That’s not totally my vibe, but we’ll be around. We’ll try to get out to the different cities hopefully by the end of the year.

“When I moved to New York, it was so much more this therapeutic process, and because I was writing without the intention of anyone ever really hearing these songs, I really just wrote what I wanted to write. ”

— COTE on her songwriting process

AM: Very cool! So kind of a fun question now, what’s your favorite thing to do in Brooklyn, like your favorite music venues, food spots, shops, etc…?

COTE: Yeah totally! Oh gosh, so I’m a big homebody. I’m always home. I have my local bars that I’m at, kind of all the time. One Stop Beer Shop is the most common one. That’s kind of my local spot. Venues? There’s some good venues. There was one called Manhattan Inn, but it just closed. I loved that vibe. But you know, Music Hall of Williamsburg is great. There’s a lot of good venues around here! Gosh, what else do I do? You know, this is super nerdy, but I’ve been going to those escape rooms. Have you been to any of them?

AM: Yeah, I did one with my work team!

COTE: They’re so fun and hilarious!

AM: I know, it’s always a panic at the end.

COTE: They have one in Greenpoint, which is the neighborhood I’m in. My friends and I have been doing that more than we should, but we’ve been enjoying that.

AM: What’s your favorite escape room theme that you’ve done?

COTE: We just did this one called Murder Mystery and it was terrifying. It was like a haunted house. But we still got out in 40 minutes!

---

Keep up with COTE by heading over to her Facebook page for all of the latest news. Also make sure to follow her on Spotify for all the latest music from her.

A Chat With: Ten Fé

London based duo Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan (AKA TEN FÉ) are set to release their debut album, Hit The Light, in just two days. The album feels like a long time coming, as the pair have been making music together for years.  For the past few months, Ben and Leo have been steadily cranking out unique and dynamic earworms, like the single "Twist Your Arm" with its climactic introduction and relatable lyrics, or "Overflow" with its nostalgic synth sounds.  In support of the album, the guys will tour the UK and Europe in the spring, and they've even been announced to play Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee.  Prior to the album release and what's sure to be a great year for TEN FÉ, we chatted with Ben and Leo about their early days of house boats and tube stations, their influences, and some of their favorite bands at the moment. 

---

Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan

---

ANCHR Magazine: Can you tell me a little bit about how you met and started making music together?

TEN FÉ: We met a long time ago, many, many years ago. We ended up living on a boat together on the Thames for summer. Whilst we were there, we were very poor, so we needed to busk on the underground to make money together. And um, we started busking then and found out it actually made us quite a lot of money. So for a long time, we didn’t really write songs together, we just busked on the underground and played other people’s songs. Old rock n’ roll songs, really, cause we both love that kind of music. Elvis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and early kind of Stones and Beatles stuff. Then after we’d been in relatively quite a lot of separate bands, we just came together and started playing each other our songs and realized that there was something really special going on. We quit the bands that were in and started this one.

It’s taken a fair while, but we’ve kept the faith through out.

AM: Very cool, so what was your favorite tube station to busk in?

TEN FÉ: That’s a good question! We always used to start at this station called Ravenscourt Park.  It’s got a great sort of little waiting room that’s heated during the winter. We’d sort of start strumming in there and kind of warm up, get the fingers moving.  That was always good. We once filmed an acoustic video in that station with a friend of ours for one of our early singles.

Official video for "Elodie" 

AM: Where did the inspiration for your name come from?

TEN FÉ: Um, I think like any band, it’s torture finding a name. But it came to do with what we’d been doing a long time, through thin and thin, through not having much at all. We wanted something to show that, you know, that we’d kept going. The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan, you know that album? There’s a song on there called “Santa Fe.”  We were called Santa Fe for a while, then Fe. We just liked the meaning of having faith. We kept the faith, you know?  [“Ten Fe” translates to “have faith” in Spanish]

“The world’s in such an interesting place at the moment. To have a job that allows you to go out and travel through it is just something else.”

— TEN FÉ on their upcoming tour

AM: Very cool. So who else would you consider your influences? Is it pretty much the bands that you guys would play when you were busking?

TEN FÉ: Yeah, we’ve always...those busking songs, we’ve been playing for so long. And we still play them, so we’ve still got just like you know...we’re quite close to a lot of that music. Even these days. Then there are others. The band was founded probably on a night we spent watching U2 and The Cure live videos on YouTube...a night of passion.

AM: Haha, cool. So talking a little bit about your debut album, which is almost out, so congrats on that! How are you guys feeling now that it’s so close to being out there?

TEN FÉ: We’re feeling really good, really good.  As we say, it’s the product of lots of good, solid work. I mean, what it really means is that we get to tour it...play it live. We get to tour it now for the next few months. That’s really what we live for, that’s our favorite thing.  We’ve got a great band who we play with. It really is well exciting for that reason alone. It’s a bonus, a great bonus, that people seem to like it...the responses have been really positive.

AM: Yeah, I mean I definitely love everything you guys have released so far, so I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. So going into the recording process, did you produce it yourselves and where did you record?

TEN FÉ: Well we wrote all of the songs for the album, the two of us. By kinda working on our recording equipment, [we] made like demos of the songs. Which when we went to record the album, we met up with Ewan Pearson and he basically, he really liked the demos, and was sort of up for kind of taking them as a good basis for what we did with him. So we went and recorded in Berlin [with him].  You know Compact Records?

AM: No, actually, I’m not aware of them

TEN FÉ: They’re the electronic dance label that Ewan is signed to, so we were recording a lot of the pre-production in his studio there. Cause we’re not really, we don’t have much experience of electronic music ourselves.  We’re kind of wood and guitar strings, rather than that. That was great meeting those people.

AM: Cool, so talking a little bit more about tour, which you mentioned you’re really excited to do, what are some of the cities that you’re most excited to play in?

TEN FÉ: Anywhere! Absolutely all of them. That’s the reason why we’re musicians...to see the world. All of them really, and we’re not just saying that. We keep going on about how long it’s been, and it hasn’t been that long, but we’ve been looking forward to it for a while.  Everywhere in Europe and obviously America. I mean the world’s in such an interesting place at the moment. To have a job that allows you to go out and travel through it is just something else.

AM: Speaking of America, I saw you’re on the Bonnaroo lineup. Did you get a chance to look at any of the other bands playing, and is there anyone you’re hoping to check out while you’re there?

2017 Bonnaroo Lineup

TEN FÉ: Other than U2 obviously, we noticed that we’re almost within arm’s reach on the line up of a guy that we got really into the last six months, Kevin Morby. Is he from Chicago? He’s from that area...he’s mates with like Twin Peaks. We love all those bands. There’s a lot of bands coming out of Chicago right now!

AM: Yeah, definitely. I’ve been interviewing a lot of up and coming Chicago bands lately.  Have you heard of Post Animal? They’re opening for Twin Peaks for some of their shows.

TEN FÉ: Oh, wicked!

AM: Yeah, check them out. So other than those bands, any bands that you’re really into lately?

TEN FÉ: The Delicate Steve album! That’s wicked.  Do you know Delicate Steve? He’s an American...from New Jersey. He’s wicked, absolutely wicked, you should check him out. He actually did some work with Paul Simon this year. He’s just a guitarist, he hasn’t got any words, and he does a guitar sound exactly like George Harrison. I don’t know how he does it! He’s amazing, and he just released something last week.

AM: Very cool, I will definitely check him out. Other than that anything else you want to say about the album or anything to your fans?

TEN FÉ: Keep listening!

Well, you heard the guys...keep listening to them by checking out their complete Spotify playlist below. You can also pre-order Hit The Light here. UK and Europe folks, make sure you grab tickets to the upcoming gigs, yeah? You can see all of the dates here. 

A Chat With: Shadowgraphs

This past weekend, we chatted to Bryan Olson and Charles Glade (aka Wils), who make up one half of the Charlotte, NC band Shadowgraphs.  Psychedelic rock bands with heavy 60's influence seem to be popping up all over the scene, and Shadowgraphs is one of the groups that has perfectly honed in on this sweet retro sound.  With EPs Return To Zero and Midnight Tea already under their belt, the band have recorded and mixed their first full length, Venomous Blossoms, set to be released in April this year.  Prior to the album release, we talked to Bryan and Wils about their start as a band, their recording techniques, album artwork, and some of their favorite bands.

Shadowgraphs is Charles "Wils" Glade, Bryan Olson, Ethan Ricks, and Cody Hare

ANCHR Magazine:  I read that you were introduced by a mutual friend because you had similar music taste, so can you talk a little bit about how you got into making music and eventually formed the band?

Wils: Bryan used to be in a band called Cement Stars, and I was in a band called Blank Ocean and we kind of, we were just at a point when we were doing our own things. Bryan was really getting into analog gear and starting to collect a bunch of tape machines and mixers and stuff. I was starting, like via the internet, to get into the same kinda shit, but I didn't have it laying around like he did. Then one day one of our friends was like you guys totally need to meet because you both have like a knack for recording styles.  So he came over and I think we worked on an art project, Bryan does collage art. We were working in Photoshop together and then kind of hit it off with music.

Bryan: I think Melody's Echo Chamber was the clicking point. We were both like "I love that record" and that was kind of the click right there.

Wils: And it’s funny cause we have a lot of friends that play music and whatnot around here, and listen to a lot of the same stuff, but I felt like...me and Bryan aren’t originally from Charlotte. It’s very rare to find someone who’s into the exact kind of like music you’re into, even that point in a song when you’re like “oh I love that part.”

AM: Yeah, so you guys just had that connection?

Wils: Yeah it was like Stepbrothers when they found out that they were best friends. 

AM: [laughs] Nice, that’s a good reference! Cool, so who else would you consider to be some of your musical influences? Who did you hear growing up that made you want to make music?

Bryan: I didn’t pick up an instrument until I was 21 years old.  I loved music growing up and my brother’s been drumming since he was 7 years old, so I’d been exposed to music and bands. I definitely think the turning point was obviously getting Beatles records from my stepdad, and just listening to that and loving that. You know, Pink Floyd, all the big bands from the 60s.  When I was in junior high, I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything with [music], but I appreciated it. I would say Bjork, The Beatles, of course a bunch of bands that came up around that time...those are some of my big influences.

Wils: I kind of got into music, and I wanna say Bryan was the same way...we used to skateboard all the time before we got into music, and a lot of those old skateboard videos would have sick soundtracks. I remember always waiting til the end for the credits to see what band it was, and there was one point where it kept happening. I was like “who is this fucking band?” and it ended up being The Beatles. I was probably about 16 or 17. I have a lot of thanking to do to the Skateboard community for introducing me to a lot of great bands at an early age.  

AM: As far as the recording process, I know you mentioned you both have a knack for that and that’s how you hit it off. I read that you have your full length coming out at some point this year, so what was that process like?

Wils: We started writing...we wrote and recorded an EP two years ago now, and we kinda banged that out really quickly over the course of 6 months. We wrote everything and recorded and had it mastered. I think it was right after we put the EP out, in August of 2015, we really were focusing on writing the full length. We had already been writing songs, and ideas were really tossed around for a couple months. So I’d say the beginning of 2016 was when we said hey we need to start recording, and I just kinda fixed up a 24-track analog tape machine for the studio. We were like we’re gonna record to 2" 24 track tape and do this whole analog thing. And we took some songs, I think we started with “Scarlet Tunic.” It’s a song we had been playing out live and we hadn’t recorded at all. We kinda did a piecemeal thing, where we were writing and recording at the same time. Yeah, probably over a 4 month period. So we were just doing everything as we recorded it. We recorded everything here at my house to tape. And then we went down to Athens, GA and had the record mixed at Chase Park Transduction. The guy that mixes, his name is Drew Vandenberg.  He did a bunch of cool records, he did Toro Y Moi Underneath the Pine. He was an assistant engineer for Deerhunter, just a bunch of really cool stuff...Of Montreal. We really like his work and what he contributed to those records and felt like it would be a really good fit. So we went down there for about a week and a half, or a week, and mixed with him. We clicked, and it was a really great experience. We’re super happy with how it all turned out. We kinda did this full analog thing. It was cool this time getting someone else to mix it. We could have mixed it ourselves, but it probably would have taken a lot longer.  It’s also cool having someone who we agree with, with other things that they worked on kinda seeing what they can do with it. Also in terms of a deadline. For the third record that we’ve already kind of started writing, we definitely wanna have a little more time, but it was definitely kinda cool. In December I hit up Drew and made an appointment like alright, here’s what’s happening, we’re gonna be mixing in the summer, we have 4 months, the clock is ticking. Once we did that it was like alright, we’ve gotta finish recording these songs and then come up with these songs. I think the last week before we brought it down, we completely wrote and recorded the last song on the album “Bossa Supernova,” which was a really fun experience. We got a bunch of friends to come out and just kind of improvised. We incorporated instrumentation that we’ve never, either of us, have ever recorded. Like a saxophone, clarinet, and a lot of cool percussion instruments on that last track. It was this cool improvised thing, and it turned out really great. It was a great ending for the recording sessions.  For the next record, we’re definitely shooting to have a little more space and focus a little bit more.

AM: That sounds really cool though. Then you’re pressing it to vinyl, in Portland right?

Wils: Yeah so we took the tapes and it was mastered in Portland, from tape, at Telegraph Mastering. But then the label we’re on, Golden Brown, they’re handling the vinyl pressing through A&Z. I believe that A&Z is in Portland. I don’t know if they’re pressing in Portland, but I know that the whole set up is there.

AM: So did you collaborate yourselves on the album artwork, and then as far as the vinyl itself, will it just be black vinyl?

Wils: Yeah, well I’m a full time graphic designer at an ad agency, and Bryan does a bunch of commissions and collage art. He actually did the album cover to S U R V I V E, they did the score to Stranger Things. So he’s been blowing up a bunch on the art side, outside of music, with his collages. So when it comes down to like art or making band posters, we usually handle most of that. Then the vinyl is actually gonna be like a cream and orange mixture, if you go to the Bandcamp page, we have a preview of the album cover and what it’s gonna look like.

Venomous Blossoms Art. 

AM: Cool, definitely will do. So, how is it transitioning your recorded music to the live sense? How do you take what you wrote in the studio and make it translate to the stage?

Wils: So I feel like for the most part, like some of the songs we recorded after we’d been playing them out, so those ones transitioned very well.  The other ones, we have taken a little bit of time, like maybe it’s not going to sound exactly like the recording, but we can do something different and make it even better in the live sense. We’ve definitely gotten to a point where we enjoy doing improvisational transitions between songs, and like extending parts. I know that Bryan and I really loved a lot of Tame Impala live stuff, like they put out a live album with Pitchfork. There was almost like a lot of songs in between a song, where the transition kind of takes on this whole new life live. The last thing we wanna do is be on stage playing the same songs how they were recorded.

Bryan: Yeah, I’d get bored. I’ll play around with even different lyrics and you know people haven’t heard the record yet. When they do, they’ll be like wait this sounds a little bit different, but I always thought that was cool when bands did that. You kinda throw people for a loop, not too much, but you know, get them thinking. There’s instruments that are on the record that we can’t really do live. We’re gonna try for our release show, we’re probably gonna get a couple people up there to play. I would say we translate about 75% of the record.

AM: Very cool, so are there any shows you’re looking forward to doing? Any plans to tour in support of the record?

Wils: We’re looking to play as much as we can as soon as this record’s out. Coming up to the record, we have a couple shows here and there. We’re trying to work out a couple more New York shows...Atlanta, Nashville...Hit a couple of cities on the way before the record releases. Hopefully after the record releases, we’ll hit up as many cities as we can go to. We have some friends on the label that are actually in Montreal that wanna play some shows with us, so we might even hit up Canada this summer.  It’s just little shows in between right now until we really get momentum with the album release. Getting a booking agent and all that is the next step, but I would say we’re pretty dedicated and are really looking forward to getting out and playing, especially the west coast too.

AM: Try to come to Chicago too, that’s where I’m based!

Bryan: I’m actually from Chicago. I moved here when I was 21. I was just up there this September, and it was like perfect weather. I will definitely not be going back during the winter, but I would love to get up there and play too. We will eventually get up there for sure.

AM: Cool, and then what other bands are you listening to at the moment?

Bryan: I really like this band called Vanishing Twin, I think they’re from London. They’re really cool, I really like their visual side as well. Allah-Las, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. There’s so many. Broncho, I really got into Broncho last year.

Wils: Definitely Chris Cohen. He’s an amazing songwriter. I remember when me and Bryan listened to that recent record that he put out, on repeat. Just some of his transitions and the way he handles verses and choruses, and kinda spins them around is really cool. Sugar Candy Mountain, they just put out a new record, 666, that’s really cool. I mean, we also find ourselves listening to old records. 

Bryan: There’s a really cool website called Office Naps, it’s all rare 45s and 7"s that this guy collects. It’s a lot of really cool 60's and 70's stuff. I’ll get kind of lost on that website, and just get inspired by a lot of this 60's stuff. That too is a big influence as well.

---

Venomous Blossoms by Shadowgraphs releases on April 7th.  You can preview the album artwork and preorder it here. Listen to the EP Return to Zero below to get ready for the release, and keep up with all things Shadowgraphs on their Facebook page!

Get To Know: Post Animal

This past Friday night, I caught up with the boys in Post Animal before they headlined night one of Chicago’s Psych Fest at The Hideout. Although the band was down one member, with this weekend being one of the first times they’ve played without guitarist Joe Keery, the remaining five members still had plenty to talk about. Throughout the conversation, I found out all you need to know about this up and coming Chicago band, including news on their upcoming album and tour, stories about their haunted recording space, their influences, and their feelings on a certain Netflix show (which, if you didn’t already know, one of them happens to star in). There’s no doubt about it, 2017 will be an incredible year for Post Animal, so get familiar with them now. 

Post Animal is: Dalton Allison, Jake Hirshland, Joe Keery, Javi Reyes, Wes Toledo
and Matt Williams. Photo by Kristina Pedersen. 

---

Their Influences Include Bands like Black Sabbath and The Police, Their Parents... and Mel Gibson

One of the first things I always want to know about musicians is how they got into playing music.  Matt Williams, Javi Reyes, and Wes Toledo all credit their parents for getting them into music at a young age.  “I started playing music when I was like four,” Wes says. “My dad was a musician too, so he just kind of started me at an early age. I started listening to the Police and bands like that, like the Beatles and...my liking of music came from that," he continued on. Matt adds, “My mom was a musician so she kinda forced me to take guitar lessons. She’s a bass player, but she was like ‘you need to learn how to play guitar,’ and then I kinda got forced to…” Javi says his mom also had guitars laying around, and he first started playing the guitar that his brother was given for Christmas one year. “I  learned how to play the James Bond theme,” he recalls.

Dalton Allison says that other bands, like Black Sabbath, inspired him to start making music, while Jake Hirshland admits that his inspiration stems from just wanting to be in a band, saying, “I just wanted to be in a band so bad dude, that I like picked up a guitar and tried to get good enough.” All of the guys also agree that films scores played a big part in influencing them, with Dalton deeming the Jurassic Park score as his favorite.

Oh, and the part about Mel Gibson? That came up while Matt chatted about the early days of guitar lessons, revealing, “The very first lesson I took was so awkward. There’s like these guitar books, I think they’re called Mel Gibson, wait! Not Mel Gibson...those learning books...”  It turns out he was actually talking about Mel Bay guitar books, which we quickly figured out, thanks to a member of another band playing that night.

All Of The Band Members Are Multi-Instrumentalists

If you’ve ever seen Post Animal live, you know they’ve got a lot of guitars on one stage (they also have a lot of hair on one stage, but that’s besides the point). The reason for so many bandmates stems from a few of them originally being substitutes who just never left. Dalton and Matt grew up together as self-proclaimed “bad boys of Danville,” first starting a band in sixth grade. As for the rest of the guys, Matt says,“We just kinda met people through friends and through work, and then someone was like ‘Hey I know this guy who’s a really good drummer, Wes. You should play with him.’ Then we did, and someone was out of town and Javi had just moved into town. So we were like ‘Javi wanna play these couple shows with us?’ And he just never stopped playing with us.”  

“We’ve pretty much just been tacking people on. I moved to Chicago and started playing with these dudes. It was a lot of people going out of town for a while, so we were just subbing people,” Jake chimes in.  The rest of band agreed that they just can’t let anyone go.

Dalton also gives credit to the adaptability of his bandmates, saying “We’re really lucky to have a mutli-talented group. Like Javi can pretty much play anything, Matt can pretty much play anything, Jake can play anything. Wes is one of the best drummers that I’ve ever played with.”  

The Lakehouse They Recorded in Is Haunted

It’s been a minute since Post Animal released their 6 track EP called The Garden Series, but lucky for us, the next album is just about ready. How is this new full-length different than the band’s previous releases? Other than the location where they recorded it, Dalton says,“It’s the first one with all 6 of us on it, so this is the most exciting for sure,” adding on that it should be between 10 and 13 songs. He also says that this new record is more collaborative than their past work, crediting each band member with writing their own parts.  

“Yeah we’re all pumped. Recordings are done and Dalton’s in the cave doing [post] production on it. We’re hoping the spring time,” Jake adds about the progress and planned release of the record.  Continuing on about their recording process, he adds, “I feel like the way we recorded is also...we did a lot of stuff at the same time and we never really used the rooms we were in. Rather than recording it in Dalton’s bedroom like we’ve been doing for the last couple, we actually went to this lakehouse of our good friend and just squatted in the living room and played everything loud...getting all the sound of the space. I think you can tell [it was recorded live].”

While we’re on the subject of the lakehouse, Wes drops the bomb that the place was haunted. Javi and Dalton both attest to strange glitches appearing on their recordings from the lakehouse, while Jake, Wes, and Matt admit to having to sleep in the same room eventually after several scares. Jake recalls one night in which a nightstand flipped over in the room they were sharing, after already being woken up by a ghost. “These old, wrinkly leather hands just tugged me awake. It was bizarre,” Jake says. The rest of the band add that they’re not big on embellishment or really into paranormal activity, with Jake continuing, “Yeah we’re rational at heart, but it was bizarre, I had no explanations for some of the stuff I was feeling and seeing. The table flying over…”

In addition to the ghost scares, coffee got spilled on their computer halfway through recording, causing the band to worry they’d lost all of their work. Despite all of these scares, the band say they still had the time of their lives recording in the house adjoining Paw Paw Lake.

“Rather than recording it in Dalton’s bedroom like we’ve been doing for the last couple, we actually went to this lakehouse of our good friend and just squatted in the living room and played everything loud...getting all the sound of the space”

— Jake on the band's recording process

They’re Really Excited to Play Daytrotter Downs Festival In March

At the moment, the Post Animal boys have only got a string of live dates announced for this year, including some shows in Michigan with Twin Peaks and a slot at Daytrotter Downs Festival in Davenport, IA. However, they let on that they’ve just locked in the first two weeks of an upcoming tour, with Wes adding on that they’ll be out on the road all summer.

Talking more about Daytrotter, Dalton says,“I think that’s the first time that any of us were kinda shocked that someone asked us to play. We really respect what they’ve got going on.” They’re also all excited to check out some of the other bands on the line up, with Jake shouting out NE-HI and Wes and Matt giving nods to Joan of Arc and Gaelynn Lea.  

Daydrotter Downs Lineup Poster

They’re Also Really Excited To See The Country

Before the interview, I noticed that a fan had commented “come to Brazil!” on one of Post Animal’s recent Facebook posts. To me, the summoning to Brazil is a sign you’ve made it. Bringing up this comment, I asked the band where in the world they’d like to tour.  

“South America would be a dream. It’s gonna be dream to even…. like I’ve never even been to New York City in my life. Every single place we go is gonna be a new place that I’ve never been, so that’s pretty crazy,” Dalton admits.  

Javi agrees with South America, saying “I’ve got family down there, so... Just so you know my name is Javier.” Jake agrees with Dalton’s point that it’ll be crazy to see the country, while Matt says he’s particularly excited to play in the states he hasn’t been to, like the Southeast. “Speaking of the south,” Jake adds,“We might be playing SXSW, but nothing is locked in.”  

They’d also love to eventually play some European dates, so keep your eyes out for that.

They’ve Got a Lot of Love for Fellow Chicago Musicians, Especially Jude Shuma

Post Animal recently headlined The Empty Bottle, with support coming from fellow Chicagoans Lucille Furs and Jude Shuma. Not only was the show entirely epic, but it turns out the Post Animal members all love the other two bands. Wes started the love fest for Jude and also gave props to Lucille Furs by saying,“[Twin] Peaks rocks, Joe Bordernaro. Lucille Furs obviously. Jude Shuma!” Jake recommended also interviewing Jude, with Javi attesting to his great interview skills, calling him a charismatic guy.  (So Jude, if you're reading this, let's set up an interview?) 

The guys have also got a lot of love for Chicago venues, including The Empty Bottle, The Hideout and Thalia Hall. “It was a bit of a dream playing Thalia with Twin Peaks. That was scary,” Jake says about the latter. “I’ve just never even been on a stage like that[with a barrier], but in the crowd it doesn’t look like there’s that much space. But when you’re up there, it’s like a good eight feet of space. It’s just like intimidating being that far away from people,”  he continued.

Dalton agrees that it’s more intimidating being separated, saying “You have to like really try to see how the audience feels when they’re not crammed against the stage.”  

They’re Big Fans of King Gizzard, Ty Segall, The Nude Party...and Dire Straits

Not only are the Post Animal members really into fellow Chicago bands, they’re big music fans in general. When asked what they’re listening to at the moment, Javi says, “This new Ty Segall album that just came out, or it comes out today. It’s been streaming the past week.” Jake says, “Mild High Club has such a special place in my heart,” while also mentioning that the entire band loves King Gizzard [& The Lizard Wizard].  

“I’ve been listening to this fucking sick rapper named Denzel Curry, who is so good,” Wes adds, while Dalton shouts out Vince Staples. Javi calls the band’s music taste eclectic, while Jake admits that they listen to a lot of older material as well. Similarly to the love expressed to Jude Shuma, the band also gushed for a few minutes about their admiration of The Nude Party, a band they recently played with in Milwaukee.  They also went to see NYC band The Lemon Twigs the night before at The Empty Bottle. 

Lastly, Wes chimes in, “Dire Straits is a good band,” joking,“They fucking rock. That better be in the interview by the way. Dire Straits fucking rocks.”  

They’re Happy For Joe’s Success As an Actor, But Please Get Their Name Right

If you weren’t aware, the sixth band member, Joe Keery, was MIA for this interview because he stars in a little known Netflix show called Stranger Things.  Naturally, the insane amount of success that the show has had has brought some new attention to the band over the past several months.  So, are Joe and his bandmates sick of the Stranger Things-driven attention? Not at all, but it does make things a bit more challenging at times.

“It’s hilarious that he’s not here right now,” Dalton says when I asked the question.  “It’s just weird cause there’s like this hesitation...like last year, Matt would be gone so Javi would fill in for Matt. Or like Wes would be gone so Joe would play drums. So originally Wes came into replace Joe. So now it’s like weird cause we wouldn’t really hesitate to play without anyone, but we kind of like have to hesitate to play without Joe. That’s been like the weirdest part... kinda feeling detached from our own project because of all the fame that got brought to it, not necessarily for the wrong reason, but for a different reason.”  

Jake chimes in, “We sort of just decided, actually it was a pretty recent decision, but we decided the only way to do this properly from here on out is to play without...like doing exactly what we would have done before. Like tonight is a great example of a show that Joe couldn’t be at, and we’re just playing a damn show.”  

Dalton does admit that it breaks their heart to play without him, but he credits Joe with doing a great job of handling it all, and coming back when he can. “His life has gone from kinda 0 to 60, so it’s a little hectic. So here and there it’s gonna be without him. [Joe] just flies...he’s so committed to flying back day of," Jake says.  

The band also take all of the attention in a positive light, with Jake saying, “Even the people who come mostly to just meet or be in the presence of Joe, they end up being pretty cool audience members. I think a year ago we would have done almost anything to play these types of shows.”  

With so many band members, the guys also comment that they’re still able to deliver their best performance, but Matt contributes, “People can learn each other’s parts. The big difference is like the presence of a body. The nuances of how they play.” “No one can replace Joe’s stage banter,” Dalton adds in. Luckily, Joe is willing to do all he can to be there for shows, so the crowd won’t miss out on too much banter.  For their recent show at The Empty Bottle, Joe told the crowd he took two planes to get there.

All the guys really ask, is that you get their band name right, and don’t call Joe “Steve.” Javi recalls a time when someone said “give it up for Stranger Things” right after Post Animal performed. While something like that is clearly disrespectful to the entire band, no one was more upset about it than Joe himself.  “It’s kinda like exploitative of him personally. Like when people call him Steve...it’s just like, you don’t even take the time to...They don’t think about the fact that he’s a real person and not the character. We’ve all had these crazy experiences of how people interact with him when we go to a bar or something like that. That’s been like the most hilarious and most disgusting part of it,” Dalton says in defense of his friend.

It’s clear that the guys in Post Animal are all great friends and they’re all supportive of Joe, but they’ve also got a great sense of humor. Wes joked, “Fuck that guy. Off the record, he’s one of my best friends, but on the record, fuck that guy," about Joe.  

---

Later on Friday evening, the guys did exactly as they'd promised and delivered a killer performance. Seriously, I picked a terrible night to leave my earplugs at home because they don't hold anything back during their shows.  Throughout the set, they also seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, which always makes a show more enjoyable from the audience.  Keep up with all of the Post Animal news by checking out their Facebook page.  You can also listen to The Garden Series below: