Young Galaxy

0:00testing. Oh, it's there. This thing is the greatest thing I've ever done. Testing. Not doing radio anymore, and it's just so nice to have a tour of the morning, and it's just like, oh, it's great. Unless we do the video stuff, in which case that's different, but these print pieces, it's like, just walk to a venue. Remember the old days? And the old days? I called that. I got a sickest stuff for us. Oh, yes. Here's a microphone for you. You're real, real. Make sure the tapes are all solid. Anyway, I don't want to take a time scale to do your loading, right? You were just in Europe. You just got here. We did. We've filled with it back. It's so pretty tight. Yeah. But, you know, we have a small child in tow with us. He came with us. He came with us to Europe, and then when we got homework, he typically wakes up at like 5.36 in the morning.

0:45It's not very rock and roll hours. We are not a very rock and roll band anymore as a result of this. So... Anymore. So you had that, you did it. Sure. And now you've grown up. You've been sure about that. Well, we buy not because we wanted to. Yeah. Now we ended up having to, in a way, because those European hours, we're still kind of keeping them because our son is... No, he hasn't made the adjustment. I thought kids made a faster adjustment when I came to that thing. So your lifestyle? To jet lag. Or are you supposed to be so adaptable? Yeah, in my lifestyle, exactly. They're going to adapt to you. You're not going to adapt to that. Yeah, but apparently that's not the case. Don't have to. Is he musical or is he? He's probably between young kids and yourself. He is. He is actually. He is. He is. He is shaker tambourine. No, he likes the drums. He just straight up likes the drums. Oh.

1:30So he's obsessed with our drummer Andrea. And I have some footage from the tour that I took on my phone with him. Sitting at the kit. Hitting the drumsticks. And now I've made the mistake of bringing some home to him. And he can actually hit. But now he hits just anything that makes the more noise that makes the better, right? So he'll take all the pans out and hit the metal pans as hard as he can. And say, I think he's going to be a drummer. If he's going to go in any musical direction. Andrea, but I want to watch out. I know. I know. Andrea knows that her days are numbered with Bergus around. Bergus is drumming. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's only that her time before. Oh sure. Is anyone in the band still from last time I saw you?

2:17Yeah, uh, Stephen Camp and Catherine and I. Stephen's over the great Demasters. Yes, it's very awesome. Genius. Genius physics. The physician is the former. The physician is not a doctor. Yeah. Okay. So he says the master's degree of physics. He's a physician. That's great. That's good. So is he, um, he must just be constantly giving you words of wisdom on the road. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we were discussing this. You know, what's the right trajectory going through this tunnel here? I mean, I think it's a, it's a three meter clearance and we're 3.4 meters. Can we do this? And he says, yes, of course. I'm a physician. Trust me. And then we go through and. I think crashes. Actually, so we saw, we saw in Germany, we saw a truck, like a big, you know, Sammy had gotten stuck under like a bridge. You'd actually jam itself into the bridge.

3:02It's not actually happening. It actually happens. Can we see those things on the highway? Oh, no one's stupid enough to do this. No, no, they are. They actually are. But in Europe, I guess the size, probably the sizes aren't standardized. It's like, you know, 100 year old. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the classes. They're just all these different things. Maybe it's common in Europe. Yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I saw it. So, um, so as I was driving here, I put on the, on the first record. Yeah. Just because I never used, well, your first one. The very first one. The blue one with the moon and the water. People still listen to that one. Well, I haven't heard it in a while. Yeah, right. I was telling Aaron, I, I mean, I do an interview every day, so it's that, that record, the new, like, listen to the new one for you guys. I'm not sure. The new one for you guys. I'm earlier to take two, but on my driver's like, I want to go to the old song, just so I can hear them. I never hear them anymore. Never time listen to, to pleasure listen. Yeah. It is a vastly different record than what you created this time.

3:49Yes, it is. And it's a little off man. Come and see, still gets me every time. Oh. But, um, we're not here to talk about that. So, we can't, we could. I have no problem with it. But it's an interesting thing, you know, how we've come from that time to this time. Well, even just in the live show, it must be different because the songs are so vastly different to perform. Can they, can they feel right sitting back to back in the live show? Well, we don't know. We don't really play the old songs. Really? Okay. I mean, part of the problem with the old songs was that we recorded that album in the studio before we'd ever played live. So we didn't really even have a sense of how the play show live and, and, and the kind of, our music wasn't informed by the live experience. So, in the end when we went to the full-res, right? Yeah. But it was, it just felt like what we were building in the studio was about, was it so much about atmosphere and vibe and a mood that we, you know, we bring it into a busy problem on a Friday night and sometimes those slow ponderous kinds of things.

4:47Yeah. And say, they, if they don't come apart hit you that spiritually, then it can be a problem. And, and what we realized is we were, we wanted to feed off the, this community of the audience, right? And, and what we did is that, and your, your fans is that connection that, that kind of communication is really what music is all about. It's about the music and how to put it out there and how they respond to it. And we felt like we wanted to, this is kind of the impetus for the change of direction was to, you know, music should be like uplifting and positive. And we felt like it was very introspective. It was a great record for us to make the first record. But it was quite introspective. It was kind of like a cathartic record for us getting ready. How are you saying that to the last time? Yeah, yeah. And, and then we just felt like we wanted to uplift more and be a part, like experience things with people so that they could move and feel that visceral qualities of playing music together as opposed to always trying to nail that, like, particular mood.

5:44Instead, it was more like a physical experience that we saw. It was a very funky record. Like it's grooming. It's a very interesting groove too. There's one like a samba track. It's all for you. It's all for you. Yeah, yeah. It's got a good kind of ellipses. Yeah, sure. It's a kind of ellipse. Sure. It's like it's different. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we, I think I have love pop music and I love, you know, all the music that informed the first record was a lot of like British pop and psychedelic music and things like that. And it, but there was this whole other side of, you know, I grew up as a club kid as well. Like when, when rave music and electronic music kind of broke through, I was a young teenager and I really got into it.

6:30And, and I feel like, you know, way, dance music was like the big part of this musical. It's easier that I was, you know, I hadn't really gotten, gone into yet. And, and it's kind of, it's really important. I feel like dance, hanging a band like it, like, and trying to make dance music is not easy. I feel like it's like making horror songs, you know, you can make it badly really easily, but to make it good is hard. And it's not easy kind of music to make. It has to be very precise. Do you play keys? Not live. So, what are you like, it's a very synth key, heavy, right? Yeah. Well, there's a lot of, like, there's a lot of layers, a lot of texture, and the guitar parts are, in some cases, are interwogant in the recordings.

7:17So it's easy enough to put out ourselves. And, I'm not like a guy who sits at a piano or a needle, some of that kind of player. I'm more of a programmer. Okay. So, you're still creating, you're still there in the song right now. I'm a college. Yeah, yeah. I create a lot of that kind of, like, the bedrock for the songs. And then, really, for a live, I just, like, cherry pick elements that couldn't hear a translate while the guitar, or intended for the guitar. And because I feel like playing a keyboard would set me back somehow as a live player, I wouldn't be able to perform in this other game. Oh, and if it was, I'd be... Well, it's difficult to scratch you. Yeah. But, but, but, not Shapiro, or this kind of multi-instrumental, it's a lot of keyboard parts. And, like, a lot of me, and I've been since days, we used back to it.

8:03And that's partly other than the necessity of the sort of production, the heavy production element. Well, that or you're hiring 10 minutes from the road, let's see. That's right. So, we just can't do it, and our big proposition as it stands, you know, there's, like, said in the past. Yes, you've got to throw in the nanny. The baby in the nanny. So, so, yeah, yeah, you know, so we, when we, we, we, we kind of have this mandate to make the music feel organic still, like a lot of bands that think really heavily on their backing tracks, like, as it comes from that sort of get across the, they want it to be pristine. And for us, it's really about energy and mixed with the precision of the recordings.

8:49We don't, we don't need them to send them exactly what the recordings are. I read an interview that the recordings are one for you to say. Yeah. True, false. Yeah, I mean, they were two degree, two degree. They, we tried to play it. We wanted to play the record, you know? I think that was part of the experience of the record before. That was, uh, uh, uh, I don't understand the last one. The last one we made, and then we, we, we, we were recorded, we wrote and recorded, they're all our parts and we sent it. Songs are finished, completed, like, like a demo is. More or less, we didn't go, like, all out. We didn't go, okay, there's 45 tracks, yak, uh, bleeding, you know, on this one. It was like, keep it, keep it fairly simple, evenly, specifically.

9:34Oh yeah. Oh God. Specifically, we were, we were hoping that Dan and Sweden Dan and Westwick would sort of work on the rhythms because of the time we didn't have a drummer. Okay. And, uh, so we wanted to hand it over to him. So were there drum tracks at all? Yeah, there was a little bit of drum tracking in that program, some rudimentary notes, nothing that was really meant to sort of, uh, stay in the, so it was kind of wide open. And, uh, and then he took it and he just took the record away for, like, eight months and he worked on it with, uh, basically our blessing from the big, just do what he felt like to do. So why does, what is sitting there for eight months waiting for these songs to come back to you? Hard, it was really hard, and that's why this time we went there. So it was like, we didn't have to do that again, right?

10:19So it was, it was a very, like, fun, exciting experience. It was great. It was the first time, you know, listening to the album of mine where I wasn't sick of it. I heard it from the first time and it's finished. Because it's not, it's not, it's not, you know, a huge fan of other voice. I don't think many people are a huge fan of their voice. Yeah, I know. So when you're not singing, maybe it's easier. It's more like you just work the songs. See if you start with the song and it's Colonel and then you work them and work them and work them until they actually end up being, uh, finished, then, you get sick of them. But see, listen a hundred times. If you're doing it the way most people show, which is really, you know, picking apart, exploring it, it loses the magic of the... I know exactly the preventing films.

11:04As a listener, and it's in watching or film or, or as soon as you get to that song or own, you're able to suspend the process, the idea of what it means to make it, or enjoy the magic, and all the intangible parts. And, and a cleaner, I can't do that. Can't do that as a musician. So it's nice when we have that record back to be like, wow, listen, this is like a present. I really don't know what's inside. You're talking about Shakespeare? Yeah, Shakespeare thing. But in the end, of course, it was also done in the smooth and it's not a way to forever. I miss that. But you were in one of those. Did you go to Sweden with the songs right now? Yeah. Everything was ready this time? Yeah, and we rehearsed. So Sweden did you lose the record? It did. I mean, it did. There were moments, like, for all three of the clips of the song was actually kind of written and was worked out there.

11:51And it was a kind of a lost man decision. And Dan had a lot of, there's a lot of programming in the record that Dan did. But in the end, what we wanted to do is understand the songs before we recorded them. So we spent a lot of time on it. We've seen these songs before we actually did it in the studio. So is it, you know, the continuous take thing was the idea that we wouldn't just go up and like, okay, so play the drums for 10 seconds and then we'll just chop it up and loop it. You want to take, you know, it takes all the way to continuous takes so that that bass line you hear is in a looped bass line, but rather the entire take with all of the expression in it as well. And so yeah, that's, that I think it comes across hopefully, I feel like it does, like, is it more sort of visceral record that way?

12:37It's less, I would want it's on studio magic and more in the performances. It's not, it's like, I don't know what to say with that, I was just going to switch to the lyrics. Because Catherine said something about some of them don't even make sense. It was just kind of like, I'm just going to throw words into this because it sounds good. Yeah, yeah. I like that thought process. And I didn't think I would, but it worked. Yeah, I mean, I think what we had kind of, I mean, you know, it's not like, we're not always listening to people's opinions of what they think of their music. Yeah. But we can't help but hear the complaints that come up about our music. Hey, hey, come on. No, man, it's beautiful. I'm using all of it.

13:23Come on, man, it looks beautiful. It's nice and clean and sparse, sorry. It's so sparse, so, so clean. Hey, pardon me. The pedal board. Yeah, it's the pedal board. I feel like there was a common good play being level at us for trying too hard or for trying to inject too much meaning or for people often saying that our lyrics were like, cringe-worthy and they're kind of like, a test to transcend things. And for me, I've understood that. I've understood that. I've understood that. I've understood that. I've understood that. I've understood that. We're trying to be understood as there's this, it's really typically we have the seat where we're in the music target with the lyrics becoming the focal point for people.

14:09And so what we do on this record is we decided wouldn't it be nice if we could aspire less meaning to these songs in an attempt for it to be perhaps more universally meaningful to people. So you took the critics. You chose to not to listen to them. But to take it into your consciousness and factor it into the writing. Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't think that was like, I don't think that was like what's a cop or compromise for us at all. It felt like a good time to try something different. And I like the idea of automatic writing where because Catherine and I typically rely on each chemistry as a couple to write any not every band has that going for.

15:00I can't. They're not every band has that going for it. So we ended up seeing if we could do these kind of automatic writing in terms of where I would mumble something and she would pick up on a different level. And she would pick up on it and just make words. Just try that and say what is what you're saying here. And in the end it means the lyrics for Sleep Off with me are almost entirely that kind of lyric where it was just mumbling that was interpreted as words. It's an interesting way to write lyrics. It came out sounding kind of beautiful. There was some beauty in those lyrics to me. And I wrote beautifully. Oh no, that's not that much. Beautiful closer. Oh, thanks. It felt like a really like a sleep walk. Like a proper sleep walk in the sense that it wasn't like a super conscious.

15:48I was saying it was a pretty good thing. It was amazing. So I felt like a dream. And so in the end I was happy with that experiment. I think as you get more experienced in writing I'm sure you know this too. It's like you tend not to feel like you got to like work so hard to be to mean everything all the time. You know? Like I think there's a phrasing film about it's a show don't tell. Yeah. Right? And I think that's true of music as well. Where it's good to create a sort of like momentum that doesn't necessarily stuff people. It's really stuff people's faces in what you're trying to say.

16:36And that way I think that the audience has more ability than to interpret it for their own sake. I mean that's not entirely trivial on the great writers. The writers I admire most as lyricists. Like it looks like more scene. Like I like it obviously. I mean I like very specific singular voices. But that's not really my style. I mean I write songs. So I don't. Do you write lyrics too? For everything? Not all. Okay. As Catherine never had trouble singing words that you've written saying that's too vulnerable for me or things like that. No, no, but we discussed it a lot. You know? I feel like at this point where it's very, we both feel very comfortable with like taking liberties on each other's behalf. And during the making of this record she was, who had, you know, our child was less than a year old.

17:28And she was having trouble writing because she was saying it was just another hit. So I ended up writing quite a bit of it and in fact there were automatic writing things in the social science place. But she didn't have to sit down with her two hours at a time she had a day or so and feel like she had to deliver something. Because really that's not the best way of writing. You know, you need to get a little mood on that. So it's very hard to issue when you came to that. Yeah, exactly. So I think that was where the automatic writing came out. And yeah, and in the end I think it sort of like we represent each other well. And I feel like I can say things in the lyrics on her behalf that I know because of her voice and the kind of person she's in and all of that.

18:14It's easy. That's the easiest thing to understand. I feel like I'm so much confident in her is the singer that I feel like I can walk and push this a little bit. I can hear her. She can really get it where I saw a new summer where the lyrics are quite dramatic. Right? Linda is like a Linda's down there and she can, you know, she, if I say that I might, you know, it's like a very archetypal scenario that maybe could come up with a little bit. Maybe could come across as super cheesy but I knew she could sing that. People could just believe it. And that's the beauty of those kind of music. The music will express you in general. You can play a guitar chord a million times and one day it feels right.

19:03It's the same with those words. You can write the same line like a Missy baby. You can hear that in my last song and it leaves you cold or you really realize that it a hundred times. And the last time you hear it, it just like makes you well up. And it's just that combination of lyrics, right? So I feel like we're getting better at learning. And this is a good thing about this background. It's all together now. Just like I'm over two years. The longest line-up with the Palace of Bands. So we've got more of an insulation plate like in chemistry between each other. It plays a bigger role in Halloween. We operate and write and make a move. That's great. I think that's great. Because you're not always like in your, you're not always trying to like translate things for people. It's like you don't have to say things.

19:48You can just feel it and work it out. Well I'm spending a live set in the West. That's awesome. The lyrics, we're going to write them down. I just want to get your thoughts on it. I was listening to Lee's religion in the cartoon. I was like, no it's a deep song. There's life and death and somewhere in between. On fever. What's in between? Well I think that a lot of people feel like... Not a lot of people. What's in between for you? Well for me. Yeah. Okay we're learning. I know what I think. I know what I think. I think that's great. I think that in between is the kind of like, is not being engaged in your life. It's like you're not like, I think a lot of people never get to experience life to the fullest.

20:36It's not as good now maybe. But what I mean by that is that we have expectations we get told when we do anything and everyone's got big dreams. And they're both right up to the end of high school. Like seeing them in Mexico, can't wait to live the end. They've still got these aspirations of... Envo reality sets into people and the long-formations seem to come across people. And I think that a lot of people are checked out if their lives are in proportion. And I think that it's sort of a... I think it's probably a question to be able to answer maybe. I don't know. I think it's like here on one hand that people are not really feeling confident in being able to live in a way to want to.

21:21That's because they're not too much of a patient. They're not family or others or stuff. I'm actually not going to handle it. And things happen to people. But in the end I feel like... One of the great things about doing music is it's not easy, but it keeps me moving away. It might feel like I have to pay attention. And there's this great speech by David Foster Wallace. It's a commencement speech. I think it's Canyon College. It's like an arts college in upstate New York with Americans. It's online, you can find it. You can go get David Foster Wallace's commencement speech. And he's basically talking to them about...

22:07Oh, she don't know really? Oh, no, no, no. But he's basically talking to them about... I could see him tell you about your life being this thing where you just follow your dreams and do all that. The truth is that your life is going to be about how you handle that drive home can work where you get caught up in traffic and murder that person. And then go to the shopping market and you're in line forever. And then the lady that tells just doesn't even look you in the eye or say, you're welcome to listen, thank you or something. And your life is a immediate run out of land. It's like his point in that was like he passed to figure out remember that we're all doing this together and all the experiencing that.

22:53And we have to figure out ways of being more athletic and passionate. And unfortunately I think most people end up by the time they're in their 20s and 30s. They've been collecting the experience through their teens and 20s. And then some are in 25 in reality. Like they feel like they can't put one anymore. So then they go out and try to get serious with it. And that's the point at which you stop accumulating experience and start just wanting property and money. And I think that's the death of like a beauty. It's not much ago. Five quick questions.

23:38One right now? No, that's not right. Five quick questions. One more answer. Roto Studio. Studio. Lettin' or McCarney? Lettin' or McCarney? Lettin' or McCarney? Lettin' or McCarney? When you hear a song usually it's the first lyrics melody you wrote on. Roto. Song you've written you most proud of. I know that's a tough one. And it's probably changed from day to hour to hour. At the moment there's a bridge point. In one word, young galaxy. Derry. Derry? Like milk? Yeah. That's cool. Cream. Cream. Cream. So not dairy. Cream.

24:23That's cool.