Cage The Elephant

0:04How are you doing? Good man, how are you? I'm really good. Really good. How come really good? I'm back at home. Home is good. Home is good. Where is home? Nashville. Nashville, nice. Yeah, you guys, you guys. I could see the Nashville sound coming out in your music a little bit. What's that? I could see a Nashville kind of sound. You guys are like futuristic Nashville almost. That's cool. I'll take that. Yeah, that works for you. So the new record, you got to thank you Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday to who? What is this? It's just, I don't know, it's just a good person out there. All right. And then revealed person. So what are the plans? I mean, you guys have a few shows coming up in the next couple of months. But I don't see like a big huge tour supporting this record. So I assume maybe something in the summer?

0:51Yeah, we definitely have a nice size worldwide tour in the plans for spring summer. I think right now we're just kind of doing some spot dates, kind of out to Coachella. And then we have like, you know, just like one in Chicago and just a few spot dates for now. But we're planning on something pretty significant coming up here. Cool. Tell me about making this record. What was different from this one and the last one? I mean, obviously you guys have now a worldwide following. So there's a little more, I don't know if there's more pressure if you felt the pressure or not. I think more internally we felt the pressure just not from the outsiders, but from ourselves and in the band,

1:39just to we're striving to make better music and kind of just really growing as people and musicians and songwriters. So we kind of struggled at first with what the cage of the elephant sound was. And once we got past, we wrote probably 60 to 80 songs and ideas and then scrapped them all. Because we're kind of writing based upon fear, you know, a fear based writing kind of thing. Of, you know, oh, did this sound like cagey elephant or whatever. And so once we got past that, we were like writing all these songs that were for our supposed side projects. We'll just cliche the side.

2:28That's all right. Yes, it happens. You sound like you guys all write like on your own and then group together. Is that how it is? We just kind of write, however, you know, we take songs however we can get them. Some of them come, yeah, from us writing separately. Some come from us just, you know, might, it might start with just some guitar riff that somebody stumbled over in band practice and then we all started jamming on it. So, you know, we don't really think a specific, you know, we don't have a specific way that we write. We just, you know, however, you know, whatever anyone brings to the table, we think, you know, we look how we could, you know, turn that into a song, you know, legitimate song. So that's actually where that broke us out of our kind

3:13of fear based writing is that we had all these, you know, we had all these side project ideas or whatever and then we, you know, we slowly, we surely started to realize that, you know, KG Elephant is whatever music that we write. Not a particular, it doesn't have to be a particular sound. It's just, you know, us as people, all together form KG Elephant. Whatever songs come out of that is what we are. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Well, the record still, I mean, I don't want to, I mean, this is a compliment. It still sounds like the last record in that regard. Because we still wanted to be us, but you know what I'm saying? We just wanted to branch out. I think the Beatles, you know, not to compare us by any, any means of the Beatles or anything like that. But I think a thing that we took from the Beatles is they

3:59constantly try to evolve and change their sound. And there is John Lennon and Paul McCartney, where he's talking in an interview saying that at one point in their career, they wanted to, they were trying to write every song they wrote, they wanted to shout like a different band wrote in. And, you know, I think those words really, really struck in that with us. What do you think the most different song on this record is then? The most different? Yeah. What do you, is there one that you think really sounds like a different band? I don't know necessarily as a different band, but, you know, like stylistically, I think something like a leather ball or the alternate version of Right Before My High, something that was more of a slower kind of vibey tune,

4:46you know, it was something that people really didn't get on our last album. And then, you know, I think the heavier the songs, the more energy songs that we have are heavier than anything that we have done up to that point. So, you know, I don't know. I think as an album, it was just different, you know, as a whole, it was really Manic album. Manicow so. Just from song to song, we felt like we didn't know how we were going to tie this album together. That was another big thing. We were like, oh my God, you know, we loved all the songs. And we were like, you know, it was basically all in the track list, you know, to piece those albums together. Do you think we're still going to have albums? Do you think you feel that way just because we still have albums nowadays, whereas, you know, five, ten years from now,

5:33you won't feel that kind of pressure to make a record. You'll just put out the songs as they come. I don't know. I don't know exactly how it's going to play out. But, you know, I like the ideas of albums as a body of work. But, you know, I think what people kind of, I don't know, I still think people are holding on to some of it. But, you know, an album doesn't have to necessarily be a themed, you know, piece of work. You have to all perfectly fit together. Or, you know, I don't know, I might just be as lost as any other person. But, I mean, at least that's the way that we think of stuff. That's cool. Do you think I can get a couple of like sound clips or storytellers kind of bits from you on a few of the songs we

6:19play on the station? Yeah, for sure, man. Oh, well, let's start with the new one then. Shake Me Down. Yeah, Shake Me Down was basically, Shake Me Down was basically one of the hardest songs that we or, you know, took the most time to write. It was a rough idea. It was basically verse that you want to call it a chorus or whatever. And we just didn't have the middle parts to make it to link it all together. And, you know, one day we were jamming on another song, we'd almost given up on Shake Me Down. And it just clicked us that these two songs, maybe possible that they could fit together. So we tried, you know, working it several, you know, a few different ways with different parts in each

7:05song. And, you know, we just came across the part to click and, you know, took a lot of pressure off of our shoulders. We were, we were all really in love with that song, but, you know, it looked like it wasn't going to happen. So when it clicked, it was a really special moment. That's so funny. I find that to be the case with a lot of bands that the song that's usually a throwaway ends up being the first single and being a huge hit. It is kind of crazy. I mean, there was a few songs like that. I mean, Aberdeen was one of those songs too, where we had Aberdeen written, we had all the parts, but it was just the, you know, it was a certain way that we were playing the chorus. It was more of a, I don't know how to, more of a jangly kind of, kind of feel. And then, you know, when we played it back,

7:51it almost sounded like a sailor's drinking song. And we were like, oh my God, no, this isn't what we envisioned. So Matt actually got the one up on me on that one, because, you know, sometimes, me and Matt sometimes have different ideas about what songs are going to, you know, how songs should turn out. And then when one of our ideas works, when the other one says that it won't, kind of rub it in each other's face. So you got the rub it in my face. We wanted to slow the chorus down and play it more straightforward. We did it in it kind of clicked and kind of had a little special moment there. But yeah, Matt definitely got the rub that one of us. Ain't no rest for the wicked. That was a song that Matt wrote. Yeah, he actually wrote it.

8:37The first time he wrote the chorus and the verse, he was working plumbing on a construction site. And he wrote the chorus on a piece of drywall behind someone's toilet. So in some house, somewhere, those lyrics are underneath their drywall. That's crazy. Back against the wall. Back against the wall is, I don't know, I think we went through a point when we were in a band before we even did anything. And it's kind of the same thing within one ear. They're kind of about the same time period. But we had just broken up from our high school band and the band that we were in in high school.

9:25And we, you know, all these people that we thought were our friends kind of, you know, talking behind our backs and, you know, happy that we broke up or whatever. Whatever it was, jealousy. I don't know why they would do that. But just, you know, kind of people hating on us. And then we came back, we came back at KZ Elephant and all those people again. We're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So those were just kind of songs, you know, about that period in time. And, you know, just how people change really quickly on you. Before I let you go, we do something on the show called Five Questions. Five Quick Questions, one word answers. Cool. Road or studio? Both. Oh, come on, choose one. I have to say road.

10:13It was the live shows where it started. Well, we were talking about the Beatles before, so Lennon or McCartney? Lennon, for sure. Most important thing in a song, lyrics, melody, or rhythm? Oh, no. I don't know. Really? That one I have to pass because I think it's all, it all brings together to make something special. Oh, that's sweet. Song you've written your most proud of. Indicid. Cool. And in one word, cage the elephant. Changing.