Breathing New Life Into Shoegaze, An Interview with Clearbody

Even though it came out in December, Clearbody’s One More Day was easily one of 2020’s strongest debuts. Formerly known as Dollhands, the Charlotte, North Carolina trio fuse the speed and ferocity of punk with the lush textures of shoegaze to create an immensely satisfying album. Clearbody find themselves in the increasingly fertile sect of shoegaze that is heavily indebted to bands such as Hum and Deftones. Where bands like Narrow Head decide to infuse their blend of heavy shoegaze with the grungy sound of nineties alt-rock, Clearbody’s punk and emo leanings help to set them apart from the pack as they have more in common with Blink-182 than Alice In Chains.

One More Day is a shock to the system; its eight songs are delivered with both speed and efficiency in just twenty-five minutes. “Scratch The Color” opens the album at a sprint’s pace as guitar, bass, and drums charge forward in unison while Eric Smeal sings of the absence of friendship. The band displays its pop sensibilities on “Blossom”  and “Too Far Gone,” which feature infectious guitar leads backed by upbeat rhythms. 

If this is starting to sound like Clearbody is a run of the mill pop-punk band, rest assured, this band contains multitudes thanks to their bonafide shoegaze aesthetic. The title track opens with heavily reverbed guitar chords, steady distorted bass, and crashing cymbals as gloomy vocals ponder the pain of not being with their beloved. “Suspension” closes the album with a climax that displays how well the band members play off of each other as rhythm section Martin Hacker-Mullen and Seth Wesner provide grit and heft for Eric Smeal’s screeching guitar solo.

What makes One More Day so exciting and interesting is that no song is just one thing despite the short running times. The band is able to include a diverse range of their influences in each track without creating a muddy mess. Pop minded songs such as “Scratch The Color” and “Blossom” each close out with passages of heavy distortion that play into the dreamy side of shoegaze, whereas “One More Day” alternates between moments of slow haze and blistering aggression as a means of servicing the pain and confusion depicted in the lyrics.

With One More Day, Clearbody has delivered a debut that could easily be from a band that has found its sound three or four albums into its career. Who knows where they will go from here, but wherever it is, I will follow. 

Recently, I had the pleasure to sit down with Eric Smeal, Clearbody’s guitarist and lead vocalist to discuss the band’s past, present, future, and you guessed it, Tom Petty.

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The three of you were originally in a band known as Dollhands. Is Clearbody just a name change, or do you view it as a new band removed from your old work?
Kind of both, honestly. Technically the original band was called Muffled, I started that project by myself in 2014 when I was a junior in high school, it was just garage rock kinda stuff inspired by bands like the Pixies and Ty Segall. We switched it to Dollhands once we started playing local shows because the word muffled is kind of an onomatopoeia; every time I’d say the name to someone, they’d be like, “wait what? I didn’t catch that.” We came up with Dollhands off of word association, and I never really felt like it was a good fit for us, it sounded like a horrorcore band name or something. When Seth and Marty joined in 2018, it felt like a totally new band, we just played some of the same songs.

Your work as Dollhands skews more toward emo and pop-punk. I’m curious what led to the inclusion of aspects of shoegaze. Was this a conscious shift in sound or something that happened naturally?
It happened naturally, at least that’s how I think it happened. Dollhands had a scrapped EP (which I put out earlier in 2020 under the name Collection) that was more so a garage rock record than anything else, I’ve always said that we’re one thing when we’ve been called something else the whole time. I honestly think the shoegaze shit started with the song “Showbiz” off of that EP, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing at the time, but I listened to that song recently and was like, “damn, this is kind of a shoegaze song.” I like to think that we’re a “shoegaze” band, but people can call us whatever they want. When we were writing & recording One More Day, I didn’t realize how much it sounds like a classic emo record, but now I totally see why people say we’re an emo band. I really didn’t get the Sunny Day Real Estate comparisons at first, I just thought they were sick comparisons, but I like that people think of us as a melting pot band.

A version of “Quarterback” appears on a Dollhands/Stress Fractures split EP. Are the other songs on the album B.C. (Before Clearbody), or were they written specifically for One More Day?
So technically, 5 out of the 8 songs are “Dollhands” songs; “Blossom,” “One More Day,” and “In Latency” were all written while we were recording. Seth came to practice one day in April with the Blossom riff, and it just kinda wrote itself. We tracked that song first, and initially it was just going to be a single, but then we were like fuck it, let’s record the rest of these songs, which were “Scratch,” “Ultraclarity,” “Too Far Gone,” and “Suspension.” At the end of 2019, we tracked an EP, which was all of those songs minus “Suspension.” We had another song on it called “Dream Eater,” which was an incredibly cursed song for us to play live; we played it like 8 times since 2018, and every time something would go wrong, or we’d fuck it up, one time we straight up just stopped playing it and moved on hahahaha. We all felt down on our performances during the EP recording session and decided to do it ourselves. Alex Martin convinced us to add “Quarterback” to the record, and we were already working on One More Day, so we added that one too. “In Latency” just kinda came to me one night after tracking, and it felt like a good transition from “Too Far Gone” to “Suspension.” I’ve always loved artists like Grouper and Alex G, so it’s me just trying to channel that energy.  

One of the things that impresses me most about the album is how you blend punk’s speed and aggression with the spacey and dreamy aspects of shoegaze without sounding awkward or muddied. Can you speak to how you find this balance? 
We just kinda do our thing, it’s always been like that. We try to not put so much pressure into stuff like that when we’re writing, we just know where the parts should be. I’ve always been the “play as fast as possible” type of musician, which can be a little challenging when shoegaze music is usually slow and droney. When we were tracking, I was hella into bands like Boris or Yuragi, Japanese shoegaze music is fuckin sick, and they constantly blend different styles together. I showed Marty this band called “………” the other day (yes, their name is just 9 periods), and they’re straight up a pop-punk shoegaze band, its so fucking sick hahahahaha.

The field of “heavy shoegaze” acts has become increasingly fertile over the past few years, with bands like Cloakroom, Greet Death, Narrow Head, and Nothing all approaching the sound from different angles. Do you see yourself as a part of this movement? If so, do you draw inspiration from any of these bands (mentioned or otherwise)?
I think we’re apart of that movement, yeah. We’ve been lucky enough to play with both Narrow Head and Nothing, along with some other cool bands like Fake Eyes & Soul Blind too. Everyone has their own style to the genre, which is really sick. I think that I draw a ton of influence from both Greet Death and Cloakroom, respectively. I just want Clearbody to be heavy as shit, but also have huge and beautiful moments too. Spirit of the Beehive is the best example of something like that, I think, they can be so aggressive, but they also have these expansive, beautiful moments too. Dynamics in shoegaze are everything to me, they can really make or break a band. 

Will you describe your writing process? Do you all write together? Are ideas fleshed out through jamming or some other method?
Most of the time, one of us will just bring a riff to practice, and we’ll try to flesh it out as much as we can. I wrote most of the songs on One More Day by myself first, then I brought them to practice. I write all of the lyrics too.

Your lyrics speak on themes of failed friendship, the passing of time, and people either being lost in life or moved on from completely. Where do you draw your inspiration for lyrics?
Personal experiences, I guess, sometimes it can be hard to tell. My whole life, I’ve always just let the words come out; I’ve never tried to write about only one thing, so all of the songs on One More Day are about a bunch of different things. The title track is mostly about my partner Cass and how they live 12 hours away from me, but it’s also about seeing how much you’ve grown personally. That’s another thing that kind of “happened by accident,” all the songs are about growth. Yeah, sure, you can cover a lot of ground with just vague shit like that, but I think that I processed stuff on this record, shit I needed to move on from. We live in dark times, so I’m glad that the album has connected with people in that way.

Your work as Dollhands features covers from myriad different artists, but the one that sticks out to me as the most interesting/peculiar is your cover of Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” I find it to be a very successful cover and I am curious what your relationship to his music is. I have noticed that, like Petty, your songs are able to get to the chorus/refrain in four lines or less.
That cover was actually apart of a cover comp I worked on! My dad plays harmonica on it hahahaha, but yeah, I’ve always loved Tom Petty, and when he passed away, we started working on that comp, it was way before all the Acrobat Unstable stuff. I’ve never really thought about it like that; I was raised on Tom Petty and other bands like Aerosmith and REO Speedwagon, then when I was in middle school, I found out about Nirvana and blink-182. Blink was obviously the big one; I bought a bass when I was in high school and learned all their records.

You recently played a fantastic live stream for Audiotree. How did it feel to play your music in a live setting with shows being prohibited for the foreseeable future? 
It was honestly crazy, we added something new to every song in that set, and I’m stoked with how it came out. Hopefully, we’ll be able to play live in the near future whenever it’s safe, I really miss it.

You mentioned on Twitter that you already have three songs for your second LP. Can you discuss the direction you are going with it and when you think it might be out?
It’ll probably be out in 2022. The songs really aren’t much just yet; Marty and Seth both wrote a song together, which is sick. I wrote a cowboy ass riff for it that I hated at first, but now I love it. I already have a concept for lyrics and imagery that I wanna run with, we just haven’t really had a chance to sit down and talk about that stuff yet. We’re just trying to pump these songs out cause One More Day took me 4~ years to write; the oldest song on it is “Suspension,” which I wrote back in the Muffled days (full circle interview moment) but this one we’ll hopefully be done writing sometime in 2021.

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Connor lives in San Francisco with his partner and their cat, Toni. Connor has an MFA in creative writing and is working toward becoming a community college professor. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is obsessing over coffee and sandwiches.

Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

FinalBossFight! Walks Us Through Every Song on Their Debut EP 'The Light In Your Room'

Most people don’t get into music for money. Most people don’t get into music for clout. Most people start making music because they are creative and have something inside themselves that they need to get out into the world. The DIY scene is a perfect encapsulation of this ethos. Nobody in this is making money. Even bands on some of the biggest “labels” in DIY are just run by a few people who are merely helping artists with logistical concerns, supply chains, and album promotion. 

Even for “successful” musicians, making a living off of music is hard. Plus, with touring being a non-factor this year, making any money off music in 2020 is almost impossible. Nobody is looking at the music scene as it stands today and thinking, ‘I could make some serious cash in this system.’ People in DIY especially know they’re not going to make a living with this, so why bother? Especially now?

Because the spirit of DIY is indomitable. 

There will always be people experiencing the world, formulating thoughts on it, and wanting to translate those experiences into something bigger than themselves. Music is something that can exist outside of yourself, a permanent document of not only a time in your life, but a time in the world. Just look around; bands are still releasing music, filming videos, and selling shirts because they believe in their message. Even if people aren’t flocking to your songs by the thousands, sometimes it’s just rewarding to find a few other people out there who believe in it and identify with those same emotions. That connection is what music is all about. That’s the reward. 

While FinalBossFight! may sound like a one-word, exclamation-pointed Myspace-era screamo band in the vein of Lions!Tigers!Bears! or Eatmewhileimhot!, they’re very much a product of 2020. Formed in March of this year, the same time as our nationwide shutdown, FinalBossFight! is a band that has existed only in the time of quarantine. They’ve written, recorded, and now released a collection of songs under the imposing shadow of a global pandemic, and that alone is an artistic achievement. 

Seeing the fruits of the band’s labor in the form of lead singles “Spitney Beers” and “Ivory” this summer only solidified my beliefs in the group’s steadfast determination. When a project is born and bred in what feels like the end of the world, that means there’s a baseline level of ‘fuck you, we’re going for it,’ which also tracks with the band’s midwest upbringing. 

The Light In Your Room represents the artistic payoff to months of scrappy recordings, DIY promotion, and intermittent band practice. Created equal parts by guitarist John Coote and drummer Sage Denam, the two share vocal and writing duties, the end result being a hearty emo EP that feels equal parts communal and personal. There are tappy guitar lines, goofy song titles, and all the usual emo elements, but the release speaks for itself as a testament to steadfast creativity and musical drive. It’s a document of the good that can happen even when nearly every aspect of the world outside seems to be conspiring against you. Pandemic be damned, FinalBossFight! is here, and they’re ready to shred.

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Spitney Beers

This was the first song I actually wrote for FinalBossFight!. When John and I first started working on music at the beginning of the year, I had a few ideas from the last couple of years that weren’t completed, just a collection of choruses and riffs. I really wanted to start a new song from scratch, and I knew that after talking about our influences, I wanted to write a fast, hard-hitting song that I would like to hear from those bands. I took a little bit of inspiration from the fast-paced pop-punk/emo music I was listening to at the time and sat down in my bedroom and started writing and it. Surprisingly, it did not take long to come up with the song’s structure, and the rest just sort of fell into place.

For the most part, the lyrics focus on the troubles someone is going through in a relationship that lacks trust and honesty but is filled with copious amounts of alcohol. At the time of writing, I had just recently gone through some troubles in my life that were mainly caused by me living too recklessly and drinking way too much. I felt the need to write about that issue in a way that reflected on how substance abuse and trust issues could mess up things like the relationships in my life.

I recorded a video of me playing it acoustically in my room and singing what I had for it, then sent it to John, and he loved what he heard. From there, we just kept messing around with it any time we got the chance to hang out. He ended up adding some additional guitar parts that I absolutely loved, and that helped the song turn into what I had in my head but couldn’t quite get to out without his help.
- Sage

Texas Sized Ten Four

This track was an idea that I had back in December before FinalBossFight! was ever formed. I was messing around with some chords and riffs in Drop D tuning and eventually turned it into a full song before adding the drums. Once Sage and I started practicing together, I remembered this song, and I showed him. We worked on it for a bit together while I figured out the lyrics and everything soon came together.

When I wrote this song, I was in an off-and-on relationship that lacked communication and that’s what I based the lyrics around. A lot of it is about wondering what the other person is up to and the misconceptions you have about someone when you are unsure what they are doing. When you are so open with someone about what you are doing and how everything is going with you, and they don’t do the same in return, it can lead to a lot of issues.

This song has more of a “pop” feel than the rest of the EP, which we believed made it stand out. We really wanted this song to be on the EP, and especially where it is on the tracklist, because it sounds so different than the rest of the project; it really shows that we can have a diverse range of sounds and still make it work.
- John

Ivory

This is probably the quickest song I wrote for the project. It all came to me late one summer night. The whole thing, from the idea for the melody to the final of the lyrics, probably only took 2 or 3 hours, but it all worked out how I wanted it to. Once I showed Sage, he was immediately on board with putting the song on the EP.

The lyrics have a lot to do with the anger you feel while going through the stages of grief. After repeatedly trying to save a relationship that was ultimately doomed from the start, you reach a breaking point where you realize there’s nothing left to save, and it’s better that everything just ends. Of course, that will make you bitter, which explains a lot of the song's lyrical content. This person has put you through a lot, and you’re finally accepting that you’re done trying to forgive them. You’re done being their emotional punching bag: “That’s it. Sayonara! Take it out on someone else because I’m gone.”

The song was pretty much finished by the time I brought it to the table to be put on the EP. Sage added a few touches here and there, and we both loved the song enough for us to put it out as our second single before we ever even had the EP fully together.
- John

Eviction Notice

This was a song I actually started working on years before Finalbossfight! was ever even an idea. Every time I went back to work on it, I couldn’t get anything done besides the chorus melody and the first line of the verse. A big part of me not ever finishing this song was never seeing an opportunity to have a band that I could fully record it with. Once we started getting tracks together for the EP, I found the old notes on my phone, and I knew I finally had to finish it.

For the most part, the song deals with throwing out everything, both physically and mentally, after someone leaves your life as a way of getting rid of them; “evicting” them from your head. I think most people have memories they wish they could just throw away, so as John and I were writing this song, it was so easy for us to relate to what we were vocalizing. It’s a pretty simple song, but it has this pounding energy that just makes you want to throw shit in the trash and yell at your brain for keeping all the memories that you know don’t mean anything to you anymore.

Also, there’s a little reference to two American Football songs in the first verse, and I personally think that made for one of the most clever lines on the whole EP.
- Sage

Winter Coat // Shorts

This song is my personal favorite on the EP, and that seems to be a common sentiment for most people who have listened to The Light In Your Room in full. Just like “Eviction Notice,” this was a song I started writing years ago but could never make it past the first verse until John and I formed the band and actually started working on songs together. There’s a part in the middle of this song where we use a blast of chaotic noise to kind of separate “Winter Coat” from “Shorts.” There was a time where we considered having these as two separate tracks, but after we messed around with that transition between the two parts, we knew it had to all be one.

The first part of the track, “Winter Coat,” focuses on the distance someone has with somebody else, both physically and emotionally. This person is full of excuses as to why they can’t change; their car not starting, phone being dead, or the fact that they’re just a burnout. The transition in the middle of the song is meant as a stand-in for the passage of time. After this flash-forward, the two are now living in the same area, but things are different. The “burnout” from the beginning of the song now faces this internal conflict where they’re not sure if they want to leave and get lost or if they want to simply go for a drive and come back and have everything be normal. Kind of a “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” situation.

We decided to have this as the last song on the tracklist because it perfectly wraps up the EP. There’s so much energy at the end of this song, and that’s the exact kind of final push I love to hear at the end of a project. I can’t wait until one day (when we aren’t facing such an awful pandemic) where I see a crowd of people lose their minds to the end of this song with us.
- Sage

SESPOOL Walks Us Through 'before the fog covers me' Track by Track

Not to get all “90’s Kid” on you guys, but I’m about to reminisce. Being born in the era before hyper-pervasive internet meant you had one foot in everything, whether you liked it or not. It meant you grew up listening to pop-punk on CDs and RnB on the radio. It meant you had the “good” Star Wars movies on VHS and questionable ones in movie theaters. It meant you were growing up in one of the last ever truly messy offline eras and witnessed the world transform before your very eyes. 

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s also meant you were coming of age right as things like Myspace, Limewire, and Napster were gaining mass traction, and what that meant was that the shackles were finally coming off. You could dig into any specific hyper-fandom you wanted. Hot Topic Mallcore? Done. Weird Al phase? Achieved. Mainstream pop from 2006 to 2007? Completely memorized. The internet gave us the power to become the masters of our own pop culture domain, and for many of us, it meant we could spread our tendrils wider and deeper than any generation before us. Today this is evidenced by artists like 100 gecs and Lil Aaron who have made a name for themselves by combining previously-disparate genres, sounds, and ideas into something that feels at once new and fresh yet familiar and comforting. 

With before the fog covers me, San Francisco-based musician Sean E (aka SESPOOL) is adding his name to the list of artists above, creating a genre-agnostic mashup of trap, rock, metal, and psychedelia into a potent blend that’s uniquely his own. There are auto-tuned hip-hop bars, head-banging metalcore breakdowns, and ear-wormy pop melodies. It’s a barrage of two-plus decades of omnivorous music and pop-culture consumption, as seen through the lens of Sean E. I sat down with SESPOOL to talk through each track on his upcoming sophomore album and the music, events, and thoughts that inspired the songs on this collection of tracks. 

1. before the fog covers me

This song was started before the COVID-19 outbreak and really set the tone for how I wanted my sound to progress. Once I got deeper into it, I decided this would be the title track since it embodied the various styles and themes that I was combining on the album. At its core, I wanted to make a song that started as an ambient ode to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd, building an atmosphere that erupts into a modern trap banger. I knew I wanted to integrate heavy guitars in a way that wasn’t present on my debut album, and that led to the heavy chorus part, which always reminded me of a funeral procession. Ironically, in the following months, that marching-to-our-end aesthetic would become all too real and wind up defining most of 2020.

Lyrically the song is about the fog that blankets us as we get older. Personally, I’ve felt my memory going and my mind becoming less sharp, especially as I work a 9-5 job and get sucked into a “wage slave” mentality. It feels as if things become less vivid and more dull as time goes on. I’ve also had flashes of intense anxiety and other physical ailments that doctors tend to ignore, and often felt like I’m being consumed by something beyond my control. When I wrote the chorus, I was waking up early to practice stream of consciousness writing before my day job, and “morning clarity before the fog covers me” just organically came out. I would wake up full of emotions and ideas that would gradually fade as the day went on, and thus it was the “light of my life” that kept me inspired and pushing forward to make new art.

2. newsflash

This is one of those songs that just “happened” - it came together very quickly, and I remember the exact moment the chorus just poured out seamlessly. This was the first song I wrote in quarantine, and I thought it was so interesting that California went on a state-wide lockdown on the first day of spring. Here in San Francisco, we locked down two days before (on March 17), but the big news didn’t come until March 19, which lined up perfectly with the spring equinox. It’s such an interesting and darkly poetic juxtaposition to have the first day of the season, which is usually associated with rebirth and new life to land on the day the world as we knew it stopped and changed so dramatically in a negative and frightening way. 

At its core, “newsflash” is a very straightforward emo-pop song with 3 choruses, which is something I rarely do. Despite its melancholic lyrics, this track has one of the most feel-good “bop” type energies on the album, which makes it pretty infectious. The lyrics are a visceral reaction to being in quarantine and asking yourself, 'what really matters?’ When everything stops, and we’re left with just our thoughts and ambitions, how do we react? For me, the answer was clearly music, and I spent all of that time and pent up energy/anxiety making this album.

3. meet ecstasy 

This was the last song I finished for the album. Musically, I felt like I needed a counterpart to “newsflash,” which, prior to this song, was in its own lane. “meet ecstasy” is still more experimental and off-kilter than “newsflash,” but none of the other songs had that same bounce that it did, so I finished this one in lieu of a bunch of other songs I was working on to include in the final release.

Lyrically, the song goes back and forth between my current state and my inner voice. The choruses sung in higher falsetto range are my inner self; “walk from the past and I can be the one to hold you” is quite literally about moving on from things that have held you back. Whether it be a negative mental space, or addiction, or not believing you can do something, my inner self wants to affirm to my living physical being that we have the ability to change - if we want to. Like most people who have been around the block a few times, I’ve had lots of ups and downs with physical and mental health. This song really came to me when the initial wave of the 2020 shitshow came down, and I realized that no matter what is happening outside, I have to take care of myself, and hopefully when it’s all through, meet ecstasy.

4. buried beneath the sickness is sweetness

This is the most experimental, weird, and heavy song on the album. I actually started this song over a year ago, long before the heavy guitars and dark vocals, and something about it kept bringing me back. I tend to write pop songs with a verse-chorus-verse-bridge type of structure, but for this one, I said fuck it all. It’s dark, it’s heavy, it’s spacey, and it took a lot to wrangle it in to make it what it became.

The lyrics are predominately about the “wage slave” mentality I referenced in the title track, as I tried to make very obvious in the spoken-word intro. In the United States, we put so much emphasis on work, work, work, money, money, money that I can’t help but feel like it’s all going to erupt… and in some ways, it already has. Our trickle-down economics don’t work, and a lot of us work 40+ hours a week and still end up living paycheck to paycheck. It’s increasingly common for millennials like myself to have little to no savings, no property, and no children. We more or less work our asses off and have nothing to show for it. The lyric the title was pulled from “open your thighs and give me your heart - buried beneath the sickness is sweetness, if you let me pull you apart” is about the false promise of giving yourself to employers and corporations who don’t give a shit about your well-being. This ladders up to tackling the overall failures of modern capitalism and neoliberalism. 

5. lost waves crash

I tend to write from places of darkness or sadness, but “lost waves crash” is a rare love song. It’s a love song through the lens of quarantine when suddenly the person you live with is now one of the only people you’ll see. It worked out really well for me since my girlfriend and I both understand when we need space or support (like working on music alone for 6-8 hours a day), but being in quarantine, even if there’s love involved, still conjures up feelings of sadness. I don’t really tend to connect with “happy” music, so this is sort of my best attempt to speak on something positive while still being true to myself.

The lyrics reflect more on the themes of the album - “can you see the hypocrisy in how we breathe? We live to leave to fall asleep and then repeat”, highlighting the monotony of wage-based living. In this song though, I reveal that the way out of that is through love, both of yourself and for someone else. So many days in quarantine I would have gone totally insane without someone to bullshit or take a walk with, and for that, I am immensely grateful. The chorus ruminates on how in the end, we’re all lost (“like crying eyes, two hearts’ allure”), and being able to share experiences and emotions with someone we care about brings us solace. Even if those feelings can be fleeting, they’re important and necessary for happiness, especially now.

6. twilight plight

When I originally made this instrumental, I said to myself, “I want to make a really hard piano beat,” - and I did! I let the loud, distorted 808 really lead the way, and quickly found myself reaching for the electric guitar. When it came to the vocals I wanted it to feel aggressive, but in a spooky, almost dissonant way. I was trying to evoke “off” feelings while still being melodic and slightly disorienting in the contrast between the verses and chorus, playing into the lyrical themes.

The song is about systemic oppression, the United States’ current erosion into authoritarianism, and white supremacy’s reemergence caught between dark and light in an ongoing struggle for liberty. Thus, an eternal state of twilight. Like many people, I was disgusted by the murder of George Floyd and the blatant disparity it brought to the surface. I hate racists, and at times am ashamed by people that look like me who think they’re superior to someone who looks different than them. It felt irresponsible to not speak on the issue, as the last 4 years, our country has spiraled further and further into accepted hate. It’s not only unacceptable, but that type of rhetoric could lead to a really disastrous outcome - “you don’t decide who’s equal, we are all one people in a world oppressed.”

7. can we heal?

This song was written as a direct response to climate change. I wrote the lyrics before the pandemic broke out, and it’s one of those songs that carries so much more weight after what we’ve all gone through the last 7 months. It’s the only song without 808’s driving the bass, which gives it a completely different feel. It’s a somber track, and it felt like the perfect ending to an album with pretty dark undertones. 

It’s the only song besides “newsflash” that doesn’t have any “surprises” thrown in, but I find comfort in simple things. Despite its simplicity and bleak tones, I really love how this song makes me feel and the relevance of the dire problem that will become an uninhabitable planet if we don’t change our ways. Even though we’ve done so much to fuck things up, as a species, as a race, or as individuals if we take a step back and modify our behavior, can we heal?

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before the fog covers me drops on all streaming platforms on October 9th and is available in limited cassette and CD on Bandcamp now.

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Beauty in the Brevity of a Single Moment: A Conversation With Chandler Lach of Ness Lake

As I’ve repeated time and time again, I had no idea what I was in for when I moved to Detroit at the end of 2018. I had no idea what kind of weather I was about to deal with, what kind of people I was about to meet, or what kind of music scene I was about to uncover. Over the following year and a half, I witnessed some of the most incredible sets of live music I’d ever seen. I discovered bands that were overflowing with creativity, passion, and kindness. I drank so many White Claws in sweaty basements that I can practically taste the lime-flavored carbonation just thinking about it. 

I miss the midwest every day. Sure, I miss the Faygo and square pizza, but most of all, I miss that network of creative people that welcomed me with such open arms. I miss the photographers, musicians, and fans that shared the same love and appreciation for music as I did because it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. 

Out of the large and seemingly ever-expanding pool of Michigan creativity comes Ness Lake. Initially conceived as the solo-project of Chandler Lach, Ness Lake was formed from the ashes of Swordfish, a midwest emo revival band that released one album and made a big splash before the members dispersed on to separate projects. Those bands ranged in scope and style from hardcore, throwback grungy rock, and lo-fi bedroom indie. Ness Lake definitively falls in the latter category but retains Lach’s unmistakable voice that was found throughout the 23 minutes of Rodia. While his vocals may sound similar to those found on the cult emo touchpoint, the difference is precisely what you might expect from nearly a half-decade of time passing; Lach’s songwriting has been honed to a fine point, and his sonic palette has expanded to new heights. 

Not only is Ness Lake home to some of the best songwriting in the entire state of Michigan, the scope of the project, and its initial beginnings as a hidden Bandcamp page gave Lach the time, space, and freedom to truly let his creativity unfurl. He was able to experiment, play, and break out of traditional album formats and artistic expectations. 

Earlier this year, Lach released Everything Green and Overgrown, 16 entirely self-produced tracks that act as a synopsis of his 2019. At the end of August, he gifted us Low Light, a collection of vignettes that mirror the emotions and feelings we’ve collectively experienced during this claustrophobic year spent in isolation.

While these are just two releases of more than a dozen on Ness Lake’s Bandcamp page, both Everything Green and Low Light act as perfect entry points to Lach’s unique brand of soft, electronic-tinged lo-fi. I sat down with Lach to talk about Ness Lake’s ever-evolving sound, scaling his songs up or down for live shows, and the Michigan scene at-large.

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It’s hard to pin Ness Lake down to any one genre. In the past, you’ve described the project as “delay-driven diary-rock,” and more recently, you’ve used the term “sound collections” which simultaneously feels broad yet accurate. How do you describe the project when you’re explaining it to people?

It’s hard! I actually don’t like bringing up the project with people, at all lol. But yeah, it’s hard when I do because it’s not really an easy sound to classify. At least from record to record, I think that the sounds and approach are constantly shifting. Sometimes I just tell people (especially coworkers) that I play “alternative rock” and try to change the subject. 

I chose “sound collections” for this most recent release because I’ve been ruminating on like, the molecules of songs? It sounds stupid, or pretentious or whatever, but in sampling and sequencing music, you have so much control about the individuality and minutia of each hit. This is the first record where I’ve used a significant amount of sampling in my production. It’s sort of in vogue, right? Lo-fi beats to chill and study to is such a meme for a reason lol. I can’t explain it, but there’s something really cathartic for me in hearing a fuzzy sample of Lisa Simpson talking over dreamy melodies and loops. With sampling, you can take literally any noise that catches your ear and do whatever you want with it. It reminds me of this VHS they would play for us in elementary school music class of the performance STOMP where they make beats and choreography by slamming trash cans around. It’s like I can take any noise I hear in real life, record it with my phone, then run it through the knobs later on. There’s something really special about viewing music as collecting and arranging, it’s kinda like scrapbooking.

But yeah, I usually just call Ness Lake an “ambient lo-fi pop” project.

Watching you transition from hyper-narrative slice-of-life emo to restrained hypnotic lo-fi has been incredibly fulfilling to watch. What is your process when it comes to writing lyrics and how has that changed over the past few years? 

My favorite English teacher, my senior year of high school, would always say “brevity is the soul of wit!”

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of power that exists in the “hyper-narrative slice-of-life” stuff. You can obviously tell more fleshed out stories, but I don’t think that it’s always the most effective approach. In the last year or so, I’ve dedicated a lot of my energy to thinking about my voice as another instrument in the arrangement--being more conscious of its rhythm, melody, and place in the song. Sometimes, that means less is more.

Now, at 25, I work as a 10th grade English teacher, and the last few years I’ve been teaching this collection of vignettes called The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In teaching vignettes, and having my students write vignettes, I’ve learned a lot about the beauty in the brevity of a single moment. I try to meditate on that throughout the day. Many of my recent songs embody feelings sparked by brief, beautiful interactions and I try to craft the song around that experience. 

How has the autonomy of self-producing and self-releasing your own music changed your creative process?

Most of the songs for low light were written and tracked in single 4-8 hour sessions with absolutely zero pressure or outside influence. In seeking further independence, I was also able to complete the complementary tasks like mixing/mastering the songs, crafting the album art, creating the website, and editing the music videos. This was empowering because it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to do these things by myself. 

Without an official label leveraging the costs, I don’t feel obliged to fit any specific molds or do anything a certain way anymore to reach an intended audience. I’m just making the kind of stuff that I like now. This being said, I am very thankful for my friend Gabriel Clements and their label Two Foot Parade for doing a small tape run of the album (announcing 10/10/20!)

Of course, I’m also saving a lot of money doing it this way. It’s sad, I wish I had the money to commission and collaborate with the beautiful artists and producers in my life. Recording in a professional studio with an engineer is an incredible experience! Unfortunately, there’s very little to be made in the music industry…. Especially for lo-fi bedroom pop musicians lol. 

All this to say, I can’t make this machine turn all alone. I’m very thankful for my friends Matthew Johnson and Isaac Daniels who support Ness Lake in earnest. They’re both very special to me. It’s cool to build relationships with artists who primarily delve into other mediums. Isaac and Matthew have both left lasting impressions on the way that I create and view art.

[Matthew is a multimedia artist and MFA student at University of Northern Texas, where he also teaches introductory art classes to undergraduate students. We find a lot of parallels between our work; while I primarily create auditory media and he creates visual media, we’re able to consider and critique each other’s art at its core form: as expression! Matthew regularly contributes beautiful pieces of his art to the project, including the full album spreads of both Kicking and Rodia (by Swordfish).]

[Isaac is a graphic designer at a company called AREA 17, based out of Brooklyn, New York. Isaac has been a fervent supporter in my life, since he discovered Swordfish in 2017 and somehow inserted himself into my life as a trusted friend and collaborator (lol). Isaac is basically my one-man all-things-emo focus group--he’s honest, in-tune, and constantly hunting for new music to spin. Isaac has helped me with spectacular design work (and is also really patient when I send him some text that I can’t figure out how to align) and also just finished the design work for the low light tape pressing with Two Foot Parade Records.]

It seems like you have all the tools at your disposal to create the exact type of songs that you want. How has your approach to music creation changed over the last few years?

Oh god yeah. The people that are close to me are all well aware of my habits. My collecting habits don’t stop at sounds, unfortunately. I feel like what you’re saying rings true though. When I first started making music (in 2009, freshman year of high school), all I owned was my acoustic guitar, so all I wrote were terrible acoustic pop-punk songs. As I’ve accumulated different pieces of musical gear, I’ve found that I’ve expanded with it. Like… If I have a keyboard, I’m going to use it! I try to create interesting layering with my music to try and make textures, so there’s a lot of room for experimentation.

I’m very privileged to be gainfully employed and have a relatively low cost of living at this current moment. I’ve found great pleasure in buying/selling/trading music gear as a way of testing and trying various gear. After all, as long as you keep good care of your stuff, it usually retains its value. There was a point in my life where I just constantly refreshed /r/letstradepedals, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace. 

It kind of turned into a game? An addiction? It was cool, I basically got to try every reverb pedal on the market for pretty much the cost of shipping. I feel like you can watch a thousand pedal demos of the same pedal and then once it comes in the mail, it sounds completely different through your own rig than it did through your iPhone speakers when you’re watching Knobs demos. It’s like a curation process. Except I own like eight cassette players for no reason now.

The two main instruments I used for low light were my Teenage Engineering OP-1 and the Elektron Model:Cycles. I was fortunate enough to get them used from friends in some Facebook gear groups I subscribe to. My main workflow lately is to record four instrumental tracks onto the OP-1’s internal recorder, program six drum tracks onto the Model:Cycles, and then I can play them at the same time, essentially allowing me to control ten loops concurrently, bringing parts in and out. Then, I fill in the gaps and add layers on top of this foundation to flesh out the rest of the song. This process has its limitations, but it’s been wonderful for wrangling these collections of sound.

At the beginning of the year, you announced that Marco Aziel of kissyourfriends and Bran McDole of Great Expectations were rounding out Ness Lake live band. What was it about these two that made them the right fit for Ness Lake live?

Marco and Bran are both close friends of mine. I’ve been friends with Marco since like 2016, when Swordfish played with Daddy and the Long Legs. I met Brandon shortly after, from playing with his band too.

It actually worked out really well. A couple years ago, at the school that I work at, we had an open position for a chemistry teacher, and at the time I knew that Brandon 1. Was a pretty cool, good, decent guy, and 2. Had a chemistry teaching degree! So Brandon eventually came to work at our school. It’s pretty funny to be in a band with your coworker. 

I tried to keep our music lowkey at work because I’m not ready for the critiques of teenagers haha. But then, about a year ago we asked our principal if we could use an empty classroom as a practice space. So a couple of the students have seen our drum kits and amps haha.

Marco and I have had a close artistic relationship for a while. I really admire their perspective on life, but especially music. They’re like my musical sage haha. We have a group chat where we’re just constantly bouncing demos and experiments and ideas off of each other. It’s really inspiring to have these kinds of relationships and hear other’s perspectives on art. Both Marco and Brandon, being songwriters, bring immense value to the project, past their technical abilities. It’s really beautiful (and satisfying?) to see how songs expand and evolve once they’ve spent some time with the full band. 

Your live shows range from full-band post-rock to loopy distorted acoustic slowcore when playing solo. How do you go about scaling your songs up or down to fit the given situation?

So I feel like I have two different types of songs.

There are songs that I just do as one-offs, to capture ideas or moments that I’ve created but have no intention of trying to recreate. These songs typically have a ton of layers and would be very difficult to recreate in a live setting (without just using backing tracks, which I might have to do for low light? IDK I’m still thinking about how I want to perform some of those tracks). These songs aren’t played live, but I think that they are unique, special, and worth sharing. I believe that a lot of musicians probably have similar practices, but don’t publish that writing. I just scrolled down and looked at the interview questions, so it seems like I can elaborate more on this a little later on.

Then, there are the songs that I commit more energy and thought into their creation. This is much easier for me to do on my guitar. These songs are usually written with the intent of bringing them to a full-band arrangement. These songs are also the ones that I remember how to play, so they’re typically on the setlist...

For performances, if the full band is available, practiced, and willing, absolutely nothing matches the energy, excitement, and immersiveness of playing with a full-band. It’s sweet. If the band doesn’t meet those conditions, I’ll typically ask the promoter if it’s cool if I perform solo. Sometimes, they’re looking for a full-band, and that’s totally cool. 

For scaling the songs down, I like ‘loopy distorted acoustic slowcore’ as a genre name lol. Yeah, I’d say that the “loopy distorted” elements are new to the last few years. I guess it’s kind of me just experimenting with and expanding on the singer-songwriter-with-an-acoustic-guitar trope to try and make it more interesting/true to what I want it to sound like? 

Before every solo (or + Marco) set, I choose like 5-7 songs that I’m confident in. For smaller, more personal shows, I might get a little creative, but I put a lot of pressure on myself when I’m performing, so I try to play ones that I’m really comfortable with. Then each song is conceptualized for whatever I want to play.

If I’m feeling lazy/depressed/etc. Maybe I’ll just bring my acoustic, but if Marco doesn’t have anything going on and we can practice, we pull out as many stops as we can, preparing loops/samples and figuring out which of the Casio drum beats sound good. It’s cool to approach the songs as general structures and then flesh them out in unique ways for each performance. 

You’ve seemed to be using more and more vocal manipulation over the years to the point where your voice is almost unrecognizable on some tracks. What is it about these techniques and effects that you’re drawn to?

I think it’s starting to get trendy in our circles. There are tons of artists, especially outside of “emo” that are already skewing their vocals and have been forever, but I think the “archetypical voice” of emo might be shifting? It’s like you click on 90% of /r/emo posts and their vocalist either sounds like Brendan Lukens, Mike Kinsella, or Brian Sella. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, but in the wake of this, I’m seeing many artists in the genre start to develop their own vocal stylings with positive outcomes. My friend Geoff of the hit rock and roll band Blush Cameron sings like no one else I know, and it’s captivating. Simultaneously, you have acts like 100 gecs, Alex G, and NNAMDÏ that are all wizards of vocal manipulation and are heralded in our music communities. I think people are excited to hear artists breaking the mold.

I think there are a lot of things that draw me to it though. I think that manipulating my voice, similar to how I manipulate my synths/guitars, puts me in a place where I think of my voice as an instrument? I’ve spent so many years agonizing over lyrics and viewing them almost separately to the music itself, but vocal manipulation, especially pitching, makes me think about the role of melody. If you listen to my older songs, you can definitely tell. 

I don’t always love my voice either haha, it’s fun to obscure the track and make it feel like someone else is singing the song.

Despite the fact that the pandemic has thrown a wrench into live music, it seems you’re as productive as ever. How has quarantine and isolation impacted your creative flow? 

I guess that it hasn’t impacted my creative flow much at all- except my hours as a teacher are a lot more flexible now since we’re doing some hybrid virtual/in-person learning right now. There are some days where I don’t have to go to school, and I can work on music as soon as I finish my professional tasks for the day. I wrote and recorded low light during the summer though, so we’ll see how much writing I can get done now that work has picked up again.

That being said, the pandemic definitely threw a wrench in our full-band recording plans. Marco, Bran, and I were supposed to have a full-band record finished by the end of Summer 2020. With everything that’s happened, we haven’t practiced since March. It’s hard for me because we had about 12-15 demos I was excited about, and now I can’t even remember how to play some of them haha. I trust that when the time is right, we will be able to bring it to life, but I don’t think there’s any point in rushing it.

I would say that I’ve always sort of leaned toward isolation before all of this happened too. Being social takes a lot of energy, and mental illness only makes it more difficult. Working on music alone in front of my computer is really peaceful. I don’t think this is anything really unique, but things like music, video games, TV, and social media let me pause the executive functioning parts of my brain for a bit- giving me some release from anxiety. Sometimes the pausing can be a little excessive though.

Writing songs alone allows me to really ruminate on the feelings I’m trying to compartmentalize and channel into these songs. I think that there is a certain freedom of expression when you’re alone too. Even when I’m collaborating with my most trusted friends, there is a pressure that comes with playing with other people. There’s comfort in solitude.

Even though it’s only several years old, your discography as Ness Lake is pretty daunting. Do you view yourself as prolific, or is that just the form that your process takes? Similarly, what would you recommend as people’s entry point to the band?

I definitely view it as the form that my process takes. I counted all of the songs I’ve ever written and published a while ago, and it was like over 100 lol. I don’t take any pride in writing a lot of songs. I think that there are at least a handful of terrible, unlistenable songs in the discography too. Ness Lake started as a way for me to privately post and share demos that weren’t a good fit for Swordfish. I liked Bandcamp’s UI better than SoundCloud, so I made NL as a secret Bandcamp project so I could pass around demos without something like Google Drive or Dropbox. I think I romanticized myself as some kind of aloof mysterious lo-fi artist at the time. There’s a Ness Lake Tumblr from that time period too lol.

I think that most people in the industry or scene or whatever have the mindset of “quality > quantity” and there’s validity to that for sure. I would say it's definitely motivated by capitalism though because “quality” is what sells records, runs labels, collects clicks, whatever. I think this mentality locks a lot of people out because it takes a LOT of resources to record an LP in a professional studio.

Along with this, I think there’s tremendous value in capturing the process of artistic expression and growth alongside these “quality songs.” If an artist on a low-scale indie label’s press schedule can only release one, ten-song album a year, what happens to all of the stuff that doesn’t make it into that record? Where is the first acoustic demo of their #1 single? Where is the song that the band decided was too slow? Where is the goofy pop song that the band made at 2 AM? Where is the song that the band couldn’t afford to record because they ran out of time? 

I think artists limit themselves by only revealing only *the most pristine* bits to the public. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. If you’ve created something that you think is beautiful and worth sharing, then it’s worth sharing. If anything, let it be a token on your path so you can look back and see how far you’ve come. 

But yeah, when I’m telling someone about the band, I usually ask them if they know what lo-fi is. If the answer is no, I usually just recommend hopping into kicking because it has the broadest appeal to your average “rock n roll listener” lol. If the answer is yes, I would suggest listening to low light because I feel like it’s the best representation of my music right now (which would make sense since it just released lol) I don’t know. Each of the albums has a different feel or texture. If I was trying to get into NL, what I would do is just put the whole discography on shuffle and write down the names of the albums that the songs I liked were from.

Finally, what advice would you give to people looking to create music on their own?

Uhhh, I’m going to write a bunch of cliches/things I’ve learned here:

The hardest part of music is coordinating band practices.
Be gentle with yourself and others; it’s just art, so it’s ok to mess up.
Don’t compromise your visions for others’ approval, because sometimes you won’t get any approval at all, and then you’re left with nothing.
If you’re not enjoying the process, you’re not doing it right.
You don’t have to publish everything you create, but you should probably record it.
There are lots of inexpensive ways to dip your toes into music creation.
Everyone can and should make noise.

Thanks for readin!

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Follow Ness Lake:

Bandcamp | Twitter | Instagram | Website

Quarantine Creative Check #2

As the coronavirus shows no signs up letting up, we’re back again with another round of creative quarantine check-ins to find out how musicians are holding up and how you can best support them in these uncertain times. 

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BREATHERRR

@breatherrr999

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
So I’ve had to split my isolation. Days off are spent inside, but my day job is at Costco, which is perhaps the most impacted grocery outlet at the moment. So I’ve had a bit of anxiety, but have also been very cautious in my interactions. I’ve also been trying to embrace the forced disconnect, with a lot of horror movies (Thanks SHUDDER!) and production work (as always).

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
At the moment, I am releasing one single a month, leading up to a full album release in the fall for my 3rd full length, FEAR FLORA. So luckily, I have been able to stay consistent with its release as it is all digital at the moment. When it is released in the fall on vinyl, hopefully we will be able to head out on tour. 

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
Creatively, I feel like we have a great opportunity to be inside and sit with our emotions, as tumultuous as they are right now. I feel like that is key to a lot of great art: uncertainty. So leaning into that I feel can be ultimately cathartic. I’ve definitely got some stuff cooking...

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
I have friends who are full-time musicians, part-time bartenders who have been impacted greatly. So yes, hit up our Bandcamps. Buy songs and merch, it helps more than you’d believe. 

At the end of the day, I’m here to provide a soundtrack for our daily emotions, and hopefully you can find catharsis in what I do. I have 3 new singles up, and a 4TH dropping on April 9. Visit my website, or any streaming platform (Spotify, etc) via Linktree. Also, follow me on Instagram @breatherrr to connect, learn about my new music, and laugh at some foolishness. Stay safe!

Joe Billy

@JoeBillyMusic

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
I could be doing a lot worse. I’ve been under some form of isolation since Saturday, while able to go do certain necessary tasks. 

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
I’ve unfortunately had to cancel many gigs including tour dates, rehearsals, and a birthday show. 

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
In terms of creativity, I’ve found myself to be able to force myself to do a few projects I’ve been putting off when my excuse was “I don’t have enough time” haha so incidentally I’ve had the opportunity to get my ass in gear for certain things. 

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
I’m not sure about the state of the post office right now, but everything for my merch and music can be found on my website and the easiest way to buy music would be through Bandcamp. 

A Boy Named John

@ABoyNamedJohnNJ

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
I’m hanging in there! We’re trying to stay positive during this time. I’m on day 5 of isolation. 

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
We had a whole rollout plan for our upcoming EP ready to go that was projected to be released in June. However, now we’re reconsidering that date due to the pandemic. On the bright side, we’re going to use this time to dive deeper into creating an exciting release strategy that we think our fans will love. 

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
We’re an extremely tight-knit band of close friends. Our creativity feeds off of each other’s presence. With social distancing, we’re feeling disconnected from each other and our weekly routines have been thrown off. We were on a roll with our EP release plans and now that everything has come to a halt, it’s going to be hard to pick up where we left off. 

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
Please stream our music, watch our YouTube videos, and buy merch on our website! Also, follow us on our social media. We’re trying to use this time to connect with you! ☺️

Chase Your Words

@ChaseYourWords

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
I’ll be honest, I already suffer from depression and anxiety as it is, and times like these have my anxiety going in all directions. I’m only on day 4 of isolation, but the days feel slow.

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
We don’t have any tour plans yet, but it’s definitely a downer seeing our friends in other touring bands having theirs cancelled or needing to reschedule. Our mental health varies with each of us as individuals. Our group message chat is a little fearful of the pandemic and the symptoms that (could) come about, but we’re all looking out for each other one way or another.

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
As a band we’ve been wanting to start writing the album. We work extremely well when we’re together, but with everyone in isolation/quarantine, we’re feeling strong limitations. Luckily enough we’re all able to write music as individuals with working computers to record our ideas and demos, so it’s safe to say the dropbox account is piling up. 

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
Honestly, we’re doing okay for now since we’re not really touring currently. That being said, we did release an EP late last year called Sayonara which you can stream/buy almost anywhere online. If you want to support us, we also have merch that we heavily discounted.

Please don’t forget to support the artists directly affected by this pandemic by buying their merch, music, and keep a lookout for their rescheduled tour dates if you want to directly support them.

Vagabonds

@VagabondsMI

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
I think I’m on about 8 days, but it feels like it’s been way longer than that. I just left my house for the first time in days to take a walk for an hour or so. I was getting too buried in projects and to-do lists, so I needed to get out. Now I’m doing all right.

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
To be honest, I feel like I’m not getting as much accomplished as I should be. Maybe I am doing enough, but it’s hard to gauge with the days blurring together. Like many of my peers who choose music as their source of relief and expression, I do have preexisting struggles with anxiety and depression. They’re mostly manageable these days, but the general panic hasn’t been especially to kind to me. It hasn’t spiraled to a terrible degree or anything, but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t affected me at all. 

I will say the one thing that has been making me feel the best is listening to Earth Crisis, Snapcase, and even some early Cro Mags and writing riffs that rip off those bands. It’s fun to work on something that has no pressure placed on it to succeed. It gets me in the free space again mentally. 

I also am in the midst of self-releasing an album. It’s hard to cut through the noise, even as everyone is glued to a screen. I’m still trying to promote the record, though, because it has a lot of value to me. I think it has an underlying feeling of peace that could provide some sort of escape for listeners. Even though it feels like sending it out into a void sometimes, it’s important to keep sharing. 

I’ve had some really exciting tour dates cancelled too. It’s a bummer, but it’s not the end of the world. There will always be another gig.

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
I think that being too close to a project can stunt creativity. I definitely feel that right now when I try to hash out more Vagabonds songs. I also don’t feel like I have many real parameters at the moment, which sometimes help reel me in creatively. I’m still having a swell enough time writing, though. 

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
Honestly, just listening on streaming services is great. I put out one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written yesterday, and I just want people to hear it. If anyone wants to help support fiscally, I really appreciate that. I have an online store where people can preorder the album that’s being released next month. Bandcamp essentially works as a digital tip jar too. Anything helps. At the end of the day, though, I just want people to let the music I make find a place in their life. That’s the ultimate goal. Letting that goal become a reality is the greatest support.

Bloom de Wilde

@bloomdewilde

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?It’s about a week tomorrow. Being an introvert arty farty music nerd it’s not that hard for me, but I have two young children and I imagine they will remember this strange time for the rest of their lives. So we’ve been trying to make it quite fun and magical - playing with complete abandonment, painting our faces, building dens, dressing up and playing lots of music. There are moments that I do find it difficult and I found playing the drums (I’m not a great drummer but it’s just so enjoyable) is very helpful with that! Instant meditation. I’m also trying to finish my new video but realized it’s ok to slow down a bit, take away the pressure, and just be. 

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
My EP is due for release at the end of April, but lots of gigs were cancelled, and even my EP launch party and a small tour through Holland were called off. So I am thinking about alternatives, doing little online concerts from my sitting room, organizing an online release party, and also working on some ridiculous ideas to make people laugh a little. I quite like the idea of a challenge; restrictions often make for the best creative solutions. 

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
The paradox here is that in quarantine I have less time alone than usual as the kids are not going to kindergarten right now. So even though this week has been all about playing and enjoying time with them, I do also want to finish that video - it’s really nearly there! And my EP will be coming out very soon, so that’s another little puzzle to ponder about - everything needs to be done a bit differently. 

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
There’s my stuff on Bandcamp of course, and my EP will come out the end of April, so stay tuned :) it’s a collection of colourful uplifting life-affirming songs channeled straight from the Universe, and all made with love; so extra good for the soul in these challenging times. 

You can watch my videos here

Also, it’s especially important to feel connected these days, so if people leave comments or want to interact, I am very grateful and delighted to receive and respond to your comments and messages 🙈🙏🏾💌🌸☁️✨ You can do that on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter, or Bandcamp.  Stay well and safe everyone! Xx Bloom

MEATBOT

@meatbot_band

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
Hey, thanks! This is Will, the guitarist/singer. I've been mostly at home since Sunday, although my wife and I run a record and bookstore so I've been doing shipping/delivery for that this week since the physical store is closed.

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
We're still releasing our new CD at the end of this month but no gigs scheduled and clearly won't be for a while.

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
The challenge is being creative when dealing with dark thoughts about how bad this could get.

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
We have put up some pre-orders and CD/t-shirt bundles on our Bandcamp page all the prices are reduced and US shipping is free.

Taciturn

@taciturntheband

First off, how are you holding up so far? How many days of isolation are you currently on?
Natasha - This is day 6. It’s not so bad in the sense that it’s like an extended meditation. There’s a lot of work to do behind-the-scenes that we’re finally being able to hone in on. 

Nyle - I’m about a week and half in and honestly my day to day isn’t much different. Before the quarantine, I mostly went out to run errands or play music.

I know we’re only a week or so into this, but how has this quarantine/social distancing impacted your plans? (creative process, mental health, tours, album rollouts, etc.)
Natasha - There are things that are going to be delayed -- like the recording of our second album, but the creative process hasn’t really stopped. We’re sending each other demos in Google Drive, polishing the ideas we’d been working hard on in the past few months. We’re mulling over the nitty-gritties of an album that we were formerly trying to finish in a very competitive timeline. All of that has come to a halt. Mentally it’s tough. I want nothing more than to play a show right now. But our shows in April are cancelled. But there are positives -- people are online more. We held an awesome online flash sale this week, and donated the money to the Abortion Fund of Arizona.

Nyle - Natasha and I are definitely mentally dependent on playing shows and extrovertly being creative. The quarantine has pumped the brakes hard on that. Luckily, we’ve found a way to continue to creatively collaborate, but I prefer doing things in person.

What’s been the most challenging part of being creative right now?
Nyle - Before Natasha was in the band, I’d write Taciturn songs on my own in Logic, which included me meticulously writing all the instrumentals in a computer chair. It felt like engineering or working on a long math problem, which I enjoyed. When I had the luxury of playing together with a live drummer and bassist, the songwriting process became much more orchestral - in the sense that I’d direct changes in each instrument until we created a Taciturn song. When Natasha became our bassist, things evolved even more as she shared the director/conductor role with me. Because of the quarantine, we’ve regressed to me making music on Logic and sharing demos with Natasha. I of course enjoy doing this, but there are some major downsides. I particularly miss the energy of playing together that would inevitably enter the songwriting process. There’s a reason we write songs in the same room and I really can’t wait until we can get back in the studio. 

I’ve seen lots of bands putting merch up online, encouraging people to donate, and more, what’s the best way for people to support you?
Natasha - Stream us on Bandcamp, Spotify, wherever you listen to music. We’ve also got a bunch of new merch on our Bandcamp that we’d love to send you.