“I can be sweet as candy” is the opening line on Joyer’s latest EP, I See Forward and Back. The delivery is timid but sincere, like most of the gentle vocals on the project, maintaining a warmth throughout the three track stringing of hazy, slowcore melodies and contorted soundscapes. I See Forward and Back is both an extension of Nick and Shane Sullivan’s fifth album, Night Songs, and an entity entirely its own. Though unified as a collection of songs conceived in late hours, where Night Songs toys with catchy pop hooks and vocal-centered tracks, I See Forward and Back strips down to the themes of Joyer’s earlier work, with gentle vocals drowning in and out of an abraded, DIY production.
Along with offering a more home cooked annex to Night Songs, I See Forward and Back highlighted Joyer’s range as multidisciplinary artists. The brother duo strung all three songs into one video, a collaging of black and white clips. Akin to the EP’s sound, the visuals are texture heavy, ranging from the soft print of a thumb to brutalist scenes of a scrapyard.
Recently, the ugly hug caught up with Joyer to discuss their tour, the power of shelving projects, and I See Forward and Back.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Manon Bushong: Your EP, I See Forward and Back contains songs that were written in the early stages of your album Night Songs. Do you often revisit music once you’ve fleshed out a project, and how does that distance affect how you feel about your work, and what you want to do with it?
Nick Sullivan: I guess it’s kind of new for us. I feel like we let songs hang for a while, a lot of times we won’t really go back to them. A lot of these songs started with Shane, so I feel like he could speak to the distance.
Shane Sullivan: I started writing them a while ago and shelved them because I never really expected them to go anywhere, but I always really liked them. It was unique to revisit them, and it was cool to have Nick jump in and add new ideas, like a bunch of cool percussion that I hadn’t thought about when I was initially writing them. It definitely was a new process for us, but I’m glad we did it and might be something that we continue to try to do just because I tend to write something, but then my attention span is kind of short and I move on to the next thing. It was a cool exercise, forcing myself to revisit and put out older stuff.
MB: There’s also a visual element to this project, you put all of the songs all together for one video. What was the process for that and what made you want to pick those three songs specifically?
SS: Honestly, I started working on these as a part of a class project back when I was in college. I was always interested in doing a visual EP, or a visual component to a collection of songs. I was in a class where I had to make a video, and at that point I was realizing how much I liked making music, so I would come up with any excuse to write music and songs for other projects I had to. So it started as a class project, but I ended up really liking the songs and the video work and I felt it was really interesting having them inform each other. I hadn’t done anything like that before, so it was a really fun way of making something – sitting on it and releasing it all these years later gives me a new appreciation for them.
Further on the topic of visuals, the EP’s cover art has a bull/cow, similar to Night Songs, but the image is also a bit simpler and in black and white. What was the story behind the cover art for I See Forward and Back, and how it ties to Night Songs?
SS: I think we definitely wanted to highlight the link between this EP and Night Songs since it’s an extension of it. So similar imagery, it’s a still from the video – our grandma had a painting that I shot little fragments of. I remembered that being a frame that I really liked, and felt suited the songs, and also matched the album art of Night Songs. So we just wanted to highlight that link, since this was all birthed out of the Night Songs songwriting process.
MB: So these were all collectively part of the writing process for Night Songs, but while it is an extension, it also feels like its own body of work, and I think that a lot of that comes from different production styles. How did you go about production differently, and how do you think that it affected the overall feel?
SS: I feel like it’s a fun glimpse into how we approach the songwriting process because we usually demo a bunch at home, and the songs change a lot in the studio. Usually we’ll write a ton of songs and then pick a solid 15-ish to bring to the studio, and then from there cut it down to 10 to 12. These were ones we liked the way they sounded lo-fi, but in the past when we’ve tried to bring songs that we like lo fi into the studio, it doesn’t really capture what we were going for originally. It made me kind of nervous because it is a little bit more vulnerable, but I thought it would be something cool to highlight the home-recorded and stripped down nature of where our songs usually begin. Another thing about Night Songs is we recorded close to 20 songs, even though it ended up being 12, and there were a lot of different styles of songwriting within those 20. I think we ended up picking the track list that we have now because that was what fit, so it’s interesting to me because the whole album could have sounded more like this EP, and it’s cool to see what it could have been if we went forward with that.
MB: I know you explored some new sounds on Night Song, how has it been playing that album live? Do you think you’re going to incorporate some of these off the EP in your touring as well?
NS: Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. I feel like Night Songs is way more fun to play live than some of our older stuff, so we’ve been really enjoying it. It’s louder and faster but also has some quieter moments. We will hopefully include the songs off the EP into our live set eventually – we never really thought about it, so a day or two ago, before we left for a tour, we were like ‘damn I guess we should have gotten those ready’. They’re a bit trickier because they’re so stripped down, and have a lot of ambient noises interlaced within them. It’s like a fun puzzle for us to figure out how to make live versions. We’re just excited to get on the road again, we’re touring with some of our favorite bands, so, I think it’ll be a blast.
You can now stream I See Forward and Back and Night Songs on all platforms as well as purchase a cassette of Night Songshere via Hit the North Records
Written by Manon Bushong | Featured Photo by Juliette Boulay
“There is a song on the album where I play saxophone,” McClellan says, falling into a brief pause before letting out a quick laugh, “I’m not a good saxophone player.” When it comes to songwriting, control isn’t always a given, a beneficiary to circumstances in most cases, but can be just as effective an artistic choice as what basic instruments you chose to record. “We could have easily asked someone else to do it,” she continues in regards to her saxophone skills, “but, to me, it’s not about the technique or the form here. It’s about being very committed to the vision.”
Anna McClellan is a singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska whose aptitude for presence has always held an edge to her poetic and faithful ventures. With three previous albums under her name, McClellan’s range of sounds have become, and quite frankly always have been, reactionary to the environments in which her narrations are taken from. The short plights of pounding piano keys take the piano ballad to a more enticing, and oddly eloquent, arena fit for indie-rock slackers and tempted swooners alike. Her melodic phrases croon over deep feelings of devotion and defeat – humorous quips mixed with this unpredictability that resonates just as casual as it is damning to the restless confessionals at play.
Today, McClellan offers her latest work, a sincere and eclectic album called Electric Bouquet. The stories that she writes about, now sitting with accumulated interest as the years pass by, sing of a time when boredom will cost you – the hope for something to happen sits out like soggy cereal in the late-morning. Yet, the details of this foundational mundane begin to blend in amongst personal and societal changes, hitting with such deliberate delivery and personal conviction that is only fitting coming from her singular voice.
I recently caught up with McClellan as she prepared for the release of Electric Bouquet, where we discussed her time growing up in Omaha, becoming an electrician in the TV industry and sticking to the vision she had set out to complete for some time now.
Photo by Madeline Hug
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
SR: You wrote the songs for Electric Bouquet over a range of years. What was the timeline and where were you location wise in the process?
AM: All of it was really written in Omaha, where I grew up. I moved back to Omaha in the fall of 2018 and then recorded my last record in the summer of 2019, and then basically started writing songs for Electric Bouquet right after that.
SR: Growing up in Omaha, which is referenced a few times in your writing, what did the city come to symbolize in this narrative path that the album takes?
AM: Yeah, “Omaha”, the song, is a very love to hate relationship with the city, and then there’s also “Dawson’s Creek”, the last song, which is all about my childhood. It ties up thematically to a lot of the stuff around being a kid and having too much time on your own unsupervised and alone. I wasn’t doing anything bad [laughs], I was mostly just ruminating hardcore, like I was really bored. I just didn’t have enough stimulation. So, Omaha represents a lot of that for me because I have so many rooted memories, restless ones, of wanting something to happen, something exciting or surprising, and I’ve just been looking for stuff like that ever since.
SR: You obviously write from a very personal lens, telling your own story, but there is so much to be said about this larger scope that you utilize, especially on the song “Jam the Phones”, which catches you going through all of these big changes in your life as you also think more critically of how the world changes around you too. Did you find that the identity at which you write from change throughout the album’s process the more you focused on these larger themes?
AM: I’ve been thinking about social justice issues and trying to figure out how to write about them for a long time. Before shit started, like really popping off, at least for our generation, there’s a collective whole that I’ve noticed, where we’re all starting to tap into more and more of what’s going on. So it felt really organic with everyone wanting to talk about this stuff more, but the framework for talking about it is tricky because everyone has such different ideas. I feel like talking about it from the ‘I’ is always the best, because people can’t argue with your feelings. That song specifically [“Jam the Phones”] was written in 2020 around the George Floyd uprisings, when I feel like everyone was, for the first time asking, ‘what do we do?’
SR: There are many songs that reflect on different kinds of relationships throughout the record. Were there any relationships that you struggled with articulating and did you find a way to solidify their meaning on this album?
AM: Of course, most of the ones that I’m thinking of are romantic. When I wrote the first song back in 2019 called “I’m Lyin”, I was with a person, he plays music too, and we played music together. I played the song for him, and he was like, ‘do you not want to be with me anymore?’ I hadn’t thought about it like that, but then after he said that, I was like, ‘wait, maybe that is what this means, shit’ [laughs]. Then we broke up not long after that. Sometimes songs will explain things before my mind catches up to them. I think “Dawson’s Creek” is very much about familial relationships and it was a long time coming. I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about my struggle with my family and our dynamic, because so much of it is about not saying things, and like this sort of repression. So I feel like we’ve had lots of conversations over the past five plus years about this stuff, and through those conversations enabled me to voice these things more and have the courage to do it.
SR: I’ve never actually seen Dawson’s Creek, but I am familiar with the lore. Was there any significance of using that show as the title of the song?
AM: It’s not really about the show at all, but more about watching the show. I used to watch it in the summer, it was on TBS at 9am and 10am every morning. So I’d wake up and watch Dawson’s Creek with my cereal, and that’s sort of how I’d start the day in the summer. It embodies this sort of lost, wistful feeling of just waking up and immediately being swept up in someone else’s narrative, like a fake narrative instead of feeling like I had my own narrative.
SR: Television and film is pretty consistent throughout the record, like on the song “Co-Stars” which plays out like this very Hollywood-esque progression of love and expectations.
AM: Yeah, it’s funny, when I wrote that song I knew I’d wanted to get into TV at that point, but fully was not working in this world at all. It’s funny, a lot of things about this record have grown in their meaning since, not like a manifestation, but there’s been through lines that have carried past the songs. Even the cover is me with a bunch of lamps, and now that is what I do on the show, I get all the lamps to work for the sets. It’s just kind of crazy.
SR: Yeah, I wanted to ask, now working as an electrician on television sets, where did you get the concept of the ‘electric bouquet’ and what does it mean to you?
AM: I was going to electrician school at the time, so I think that the word was just really prevalent. I was also sitting and thinking about live shows and imagining me bringing lamps, like so many lamps to every show and setting them up and that being a part of the load in and out at night – it’s like an electric bouquet. You create the bouquet around you as part of your set design, and that’s what the poem at the end of the album is about. ‘I have lamps – 20 lamps at night, I bring inside, set them up all around me, like an electric bouquet.’ But I think realistically I could only do like three, maybe four lamps a night [laughs]. It’s a small operation.
SR: When I picture a bouquet, obviously it’s like a bouquet of flowers. But thinking further on this word, a bouquet is never naturally occurring. Someone has to put it together.
AM: Totally. Calling an album a bouquet is a cool idea. That’s another way of thinking of it.
SR: Bouquet is a great word for an album. It makes sense.
AM: Yeah, I was really happy when I came up with the title. It’s the first time I’ve ever had the album name before I recorded the album.
SR: That’s gotta feel so good, right? Did that guide the outcome of the writing or recording for you at all?
AM: I just felt very empowered, like I knew what I wanted it to sound like and how I wanted to feel through the whole thing. Through the experience of doing this before, obviously writing the songs, but not necessarily being as assertive production wise, I knew this time that I really wanted that control and to be more uncompromising in my decisions. I was really excited about that because there’s not a lot of places that you get to do that in life, but when it’s your songs and your name, you can just be like, ‘no’ [laughs]. In that case, maybe this thing isn’t going to sound the best or be the most convenient, but I like it when things are impractical. To be honest, I think that it makes for something more interesting.
Photo by Madeline Hug
You can stream Electric Bouquet on all platforms today, as well as order a vinyl or cassette copy of the album via Father/Daughter Records.
On a rainy Wednesday evening, Grumpy’s starvation for attention and a protein bar is satisfied by a chocolate croissant and a friend passing by with their dog. “Grumpy is famous now, spread the word” front person Heaven Schmitt explains of the open voice-memo app between us mid-interview, before leaning in to generously pet the small terrier. The interaction was the closest I got to meeting Grumpy that evening, a charming big-hearted character parading around in an armor of extreme ego. Schmitt describes Grumpy’s identity as “me, plus a very cocky bravado. There’s a huge layer of cockiness to it, but it’s also just very earnest about wanting attention.”
Following a transformative four year stretch since Loser came out, Grumpy released singles “Saltlick” and “Protein”, both glimpses of EP Wolfed, out via Bayonet on October 25th. These vibrant songs confirmed the band’s charming sense humor remains unscathed, while also teasing a new voice to Grumpy. It’s a nightmare for the genre labeling fanatics on the depths of the internet, but for the rest of us, Wolfed is unpredictable and addicting, a sonically innovative feast guided only by itself.
The third single off of Wolfed offered a glimpse at the soft core nestled deep beneath Grumpy’s cocky bravado. “Relationships are not always forever, but I think that love can be”, Schmitt says of the ideologies behind “Flower”, a tender twee ‘syrup song’ immortalizing a connection after the romance has expired. The EP’s wittiness proves to be an easy hook, but it’s ultimately this dispersing of vulnerability, weaving in and out of comedic one liners and self-deprecating jests, that uphold Wolfed as Grumpy’s most captivating project yet.
When I sat down with Schmitt last week, their signature mischievous Sweeney Todd-esque hat had been replaced by an adorable knit striped hood they finished making the day prior. Along with knitting, we discussed the other ways Schmitt has kept busy, such as planning an epic release show, pioneering the niche internet aesthetic of “dirtybag twee”, and taking a hands-on role in the creation of Grumpy’s new sound.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity:
Manon Bushong: Before we dive into music, I did want to ask about your outfits and awesome hat collection. How you would describe your style, and what do you look for when you’re picking the outfits you play in, or just wear in general.
HS: Well, I love a funky hat, obviously. I’m super inspired right now by Sweeney Todd / Beetlejuice vibes…crusty insane man in a suit. It’s largely inspired by my hair, it recently came out a more cool-toned gray than I thought, but then I just leaned into it. I have a Sunday night ritual of making a little picnic dinner on the beach and the only time I wet my hair is in the ocean. So it’s super gross and sandy and wavy, and that inspired the whole Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd era for me.
Right now, I’m trying not to buy anything. When I’m picking stuff out, I’m just trying to entertain myself with what I have. I’ve just started posting outfit TikToks…lord help me…but someone on TikTok described it as “Victorian Truck Stop, and I love that. Challenging myself to post TikToks about it really pushes me to make an outfit that much more bizarre, or just to add one extra layer of intrigue. I just love clothes and expressing myself with my style.
I’ve landed on, what do they call it? Oh yeah, therian TikTok. It’s these young kids who are ‘therians’, from what I understand, it’s a furry thing. So I need to figure out what animal I am. I don’t know…I’m getting wolf a lot, but I don’t know if that’s true. I think I’m a little cuddlier. Maybe there’s puppy elements to it? I’m never gonna beat the furry allegations.
MB: Wolfed is also the title of your upcoming EP.
HS: Ohhhh, yeah. Okay, I’m Wolf. I am Wolf.
MB: What does that verb mean to you for this collection of songs?
HS: Wolfed came from Anya, my bandmate and deepest collaborator. She’s the bassist in the band. I kind of just call her the art director of the project because she and I make all of the PR photos and cover art together. She has a really crazy editing style that I love and she also really gets me. She sees the fantasy realm that exists in my head. She sees it in me and understands me and is so good at translating these things into words and images. Anyways, I’m always saying, ‘oh, like you ate’, ‘you tore’, like ‘you, you ate that’ and Anya just conjured a lot of Big Bad Wolf energy. The art direction for this EP has a lot of dark fantasy inspiration. So we were thinking a lot about Big Bad Wolf, and she came up with the phrase wolfed as another way of saying “you ate”, like, you just devoured something.
For me, this EP and what’s coming is a real response to our first album, Loser. This is kind of my winner. These few years when I haven’t released anything have been a huge transformative time. I mean I called the band Grumpy, and I called the first album Loser, and it was tongue in cheek, but there was some truth to that. That’s how I felt at the time. Now, I still love the band name, but I want to put out stuff that I produced and made, cause I think I was hands off on the first album in a way that it ended up not sounding like it could have if I really tried to learn. Anyways, I connect with the big bad wolf because it’s this person whose bravado and cockiness gets him into trouble ultimately is his demise. So I think this is before the big bad wolf knows about his downfall. We’ll see where I go from here, but for now I’m just feeling like I could huff and puff and blow the house down.
MB: When it comes to lyrics, Grumpy does a great job of meshing humor and some very clever lines with a lot of pretty solid introspection that can be very poignant at times as well. How do you feel like humor is something that you incorporate into your writing and is it something that you really feel is necessary?
HS: What I really value in music are comedy and melody. Those are the things that can get me really hooked, or just think, ‘Oh, I wish I wrote that’. I’m glad that that’s what you take away, the self reflection and the humor, because that’s what Grumpy stories are. It’s just a lot of me being like ‘how much can I embarrass myself with what I can admit in a song’, there’s a huge amount of vulnerability in it. I’m trying to be very raw and write how I speak and exactly what I was thinking. I bring in discomfort from honesty and then invite people to laugh at me, like isn’t it ridiculous that this is how I saw it?
Humor is such a way for me to access the uglier sides of who I am and to confront them. My history with music and pursuing music, was so ‘tortured artist student’. I really wanted to pursue music as a career so in college I was trying so hard to make songs that were relatable and not too weird. It just destroyed me, it was zero fun and the songs were terrible. I got to this point, right as I was graduating college where I was like, ‘you know what? Let’s just get real, I don’t have what it takes to do this’. So I went and worked at an ad agency for a year, it was just this dramatic exit and I didn’t make any music during that time. It relieved so much pressure that after maybe eight or nine months, I was like, ‘well I’ll pick up the guitar’, I can just do this for fun. Then there were no constraints, it wasn’t for anyone but me. From that total lack of pressure, all these goofy dorky songs that were so me came out. So that’s the whole genesis of what Grumpy is, how I figured out how to make music fun for me.
MB: What shape is the fun of Grumpy taking now, four years later?
HS: We’ve got a really exciting tour planned and a bunch of music sitting in the cannon. These past four years in between releasing anything have been so important and I’m glad I waited because I knew I wanted help. I talked to a bunch of labels, but nothing ever felt right until Bayonet. I totally cried in our lunch meeting, because I was just like “Oh my God, they get it. They get me”. They shared what they believed was possible for me and the spaces they saw us in, like the bills they saw us on, stuff that I only privately thought ‘does anybody else but me think that we belong in this space?’ I love them and I’m grateful and I think they’re crushing.
Everything that’s coming for Grumpy is the result of my roots in folk and indie music, those are just my biggest influences. I’m also hugely inspired by hyperpop and electronic music. Hyperpop artists have this brilliant sense of humor and sense of fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and I’m so inspired by what they can achieve. I think Frost Children is so much bigger than any one genre you could put them in, they’re just absolute savants. I think they’re the best performers I’ve ever known, they have so much fun on stage.
For me, Grumpy is this combo, a product of these two influences. During our first meeting, Bayonet was describing it as “hyperfolk”. Genre-izing things is hard for me, everybody wants to come up with the next Indie Sleaze category, but damn, they kind of nailed it with hyper-folk. Electronic vocals, indie sensibilities.
MB: Do you think that there could be more of a hyper pop future for Grumpy?
HS: I’m never concerned about cohesiveness. I think I’m the through line, so I can make whatever I want and it is Grumpy. I don’t see myself doing side projects, I just see Grumpy having a wide stroke. I have a lot of heavier rock stuff coming, some more electronic stuff, some classic indie, jangly pop stuff, and then it’s just some weird, weird folk that I’ve been sitting on for a long time. That’s another reason Frost Children are such a big inspiration to me, they could really crush such a huge variety of genres and it still sounds like them because they have a strong voice.
I love it so much, these people are my family, they understand me and have seen me so fully and still love me. It’s very healing to have them close, that we’ve remained valuable to each other in and outside of a romantic context.
MB: You play with a few of your exes. I saw you live last week, and there was something very special about the energy of your band, which I assume that contributes to. Do you have a favorite part about playing with people you share that intimate relationship with?
HS: I like to joke that dumping me results in a life sentence of commitment to the band Grumpy, but they have all honored that. It is funny to joke about but it really is this beautiful thing for me, and I think it adds to the rawness. There’s a level of realism that can only be achieved by songs being performed by the people they’re about, like I’ve written the songs, but the people in the band have had a hand in living the story. In a way, they’ve written the reality, I just put it into words and melody.
“Flower”, is a very twee, sweet love song about a romance that has ended and it’s a reflection on the love. Relationships are not always forever, but I think that love can be. The way that I approach dating is knowing that that love can and will change shape. I’m not building some commitment to you so much as I’m nurturing a bond that I hope to hold forever. So, having these exes near and dear is just living that. I’m so glad I dated each of them, they’re such a huge part of me and I still feel very loved by each of them. My bonds with them feel eternal. In and outside of a relationship, we nurture that with each other, and that’s what “Flower” is about. I think it speaks highly of all of us, and the community that we hold for each other. It’s a rare relationship that I’ve come to really appreciate.
To specifically highlight Anya, we ultimately realized that we were not lifelong romantic partners, but we do have this really incredible artistic connection. I always get this image in my head of two little rodents digging, like a skunk and raccoon with little archaeology brushes, uncovering and discovering things that we can make in the world. She’s just a music veteran, absolute powerhouse, freak of nature, not from this planet. Then Austin, my ex husband on drums, he’s the voice of reason in the band. We often don’t follow his apprehension, but it is good to have. He’s also just like our AV guy, he can really be so organized.
MB: What’s next for Grumpy
HS: Our EP release show is happening October 27th. I held off on playing a Grumpy headline show, this band has been around like four or five years and we just played our first one in July at Cassette. I like to be very specific with headline shows because I personally don’t love to go to shows. If the band is good, I’m like, ‘Damn, these guys are great. I want to get home and write a song.’ If they’re not, I’m like, ‘how come I’m not up there? I want to go home and write a song.’ Either way, it makes me want to leave and write a song, except for Blaketheman shows and Frost Children shows, then I’m locked in, that is pure entertainment. Blaketheman1000 has humor like no other, I actually think he’s a genius if you read his lyrics. He and I’ve been friends for 10 years, he was my first friend in college. I just think he’s an underrated genius and comedic hero. He really understands putting humor in music, he just nails that confidence.
Anyways, EP release show. It’s Halloween weekend and I basically want to throw a party where bands are playing. For our first headline show, we had free hot dogs and a hot dog eating contest with a bunch of my beautiful friends. So for this Halloween weekend show, we’re doing a huge costume contest and I want to gather a whole bunch of prizes and merch related stuff. I want an apple cider donut contest, probably some candy too. I like a snack element, there’s not enough food at shows. It’s going to be at Trans Pecos and the lineup is Estelle Allen and Thanks For Coming, and Grumpy. We’ll be dropping some merch and the EP will be on cassette. I’m gonna go hard, but Halloween is such an impossible question. I think for a Halloween costume to work for me, it has to have a wig, cause wigs are the thing I’m not wearing. Although, I really cannot deny that I am thinking about powdered wigs. Who’s pulling up to the function in a powdered wig?
Wolfed will be out October 25 via Bayonet Records. You can preorder the EP as well as a cassette tape here. Grumpy will be playing an EP release show at Trans Pecos in New York on October 27 along with Thanks for Coming and Estelle Allen. Buy ticketshere.
“I was so nervous it was just going to sound like a collection of songs? In hindsight…what the hell does that even mean?” Victoria Winter reflects in between sips of chai tea.
We are having the age-old ‘what makes a record’ conversation. It’s a topic that leaves room for hours of discourse, but for New York based Shower Curtain’s debut album, the answer is relatively straightforward. Titled as an ode to the band’s journey, governed equal parts by fate and Winter’s deep sense of intuition, words from a wishing well marks the promising start for Shower Curtain’s synergetic future as a four-piece rock band. “I also don’t want a record with songs that all kind of sound the same. I had forgotten that, no matter what, it still has this unspoken identity that is ours”, Winter declares, putting the subject to rest.
The unspoken identity she speaks of is a strong one, one you trust and one that leaves you wanting more. A certain tenderness in Winter’s vocals paired with vulnerable slices of internal dialogue salute her bedroom pop roots, while a new presence of heavily layered instrumentals eulogize Shower Curtain’s days as a solo project. Now joined by Ethan Williams (guitar / vocals), Sean Terrell (drums), and Cody Hudgins (bass), words from a wishing well is a stunning journal of internal roadblocks, some easy to articulate and others leaning more into the abstract.
Wilting thoughts of “I can’t be on my own” and “I’m always falling apart” are intensified by fervent guitar riffs on “take me home”. On “benadryl man” the suffocations of nocturnal anxieties manifest as a figure on Winter’s ‘velvet purple couch’, blanketed in eerie, staticky distortions. The album wraps with “edgar”, where the stinging in Winter’s vocals compete with heavy chord progressions to deliver a story of grief you feel in the depths in your chest.
At times honoring the noise-driven, sludgy guitar tropes of 90s shoegaze, at times experimenting with electronic production styles, there is an essence of Shower Curtain’s newly formed collaborative personality seeping into every track.
I sat down with Winter and Williams last week to discuss Shower Curtain’s compelling visuals, their upcoming tour, and words from a wishing well, out everywhere today via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk Records.
This Interview has been edited for length and clarity
Manon Bushong: You’ve been making music since 2018, but words from a wishing well is Shower Curtain’s debut album. Did you always intend for these songs to exist as an album, and how did the process of creating them vary from Shower Curtain’s prior singles and EPs?
Winter: This is the first time that Shower Curtain is really doing things as a band, before it was more just me alone for fun. I would say this album definitely marks being in New York, being collaborative, and just having a more solid group of individuals and contributions. I always did want to make a record, but it’s kind of hard to navigate the music landscape. One hand, people tell you, “fuck albums, you need to be doing singles and EPs until you’re big enough”, but then, no label is gonna wanna work with you if you don’t have a record. So as a small indie band, you’re kind of like, ‘okay, what should I do?’ So we kind of went back and forth and then kind of just kept as we wrote, which I don’t feel like we’ll ever do again.
Williams: We’re not going to do that again. There were like, maybe four or five songs when we started recording it. So we were like, well, let’s start making an EP and see what happens. And then it just took so long that then there were like four or five more songs that we had and we were like, just re-recording them as we wrote. So it wasn’t necessarily the plan, but it wasn’t not the plan, you know?
Winter: I definitely felt in my heart, even though we went back and forth, that I always wanted to prove myself and make a record. I work as a designer in the music industry too, so I see a lot of vinyls and really wanted to have that for us as well. I’m like an album person in general.
Williams: I’m an album person too. It’s easier to create more of a cohesive artistic vision that way.
I really enjoy the album’s structure, and I noticed you included a more electronic track, “tell u (interlude)”, in between two heavier songs. When it came to producing, which I know you both do as well, did you feel like creating an album pushed you to think a bit more alternatively there?
Williams: I mean, we made it in my basement. So once we had recorded everything, or towards the end of having recorded everything, we thought about how to make it sound more like an album and not just a bunch of songs that we wrote over the course of two years. So we added some stuff in between and tried to create some motifs, it wasn’t planned from the get go, but it made it feel like more of a finished thing to us.
Winter: I had been really nervous, I used to say to Ethan “ugh, it’s just gonna sound like a collection of songs”, this is not gonna sound like a record. Now in hindsight, I’m like, what the hell does that even mean? Why was I so stressed about that? “tell u (interlude)” was the last thing we made, and by that point I had kind of gotten over myself because at the end of the day, I also don’t want a record with songs that all kind of sound the same. I had forgotten that, no matter what, it still has this unspoken identity that is ours.
All of the visuals for this project have been super sweet. I really like the cover art, the semi distorted pink photo of you all in the woods really matches the album’s sound. Could you discuss that a bit?
Winter: All the visuals are kind of my brainchild, whereas, the music has been way more collaborative. The actual album cover, I wanted to put a lot of thought into because that is something that matters a lot to me, I remember album covers more than their names. I was graduating from Parsons for Graphic Design, and I had the record be my final thesis, and so a lot of consideration went into it, and brainstorming if we were a color, what would it be? I wouldn’t say we are pink, but we definitely aren’t blue, or purple, or green. I went on this journey, I thought about certain descriptors for the songs, like ‘textured’ and ‘heavy’, but also ‘emotional’ and ‘sensitive’. Just really considering how close an album cover can get to what you’re about to listen to, I put a lot of thought into that and the name.
For the name you chose words from a wishing well, what was the meaning there?
Winter: So much of how I move through life and with the band is with these very intuitive and esoteric beliefs, so being in tune with ourselves is extremely important. That’s the main motif behind the title, this idea that when you really want something, the wishing well talks to you.
Sometimes it’s just not the right moment, and not everything that you wish is going to come true. But I do believe that if it doesn’t happen in a moment, later on you’ll think, ‘I’m so happy that it didn’t’. I feel like a lot of the lyrics are about how I am as a person. Whereas the title, I wanted it to be about the story of how the band came together.
When you mentioned that balance of cute and creepy, I immediately thought of the music video you put out for “benadryl man”, which features some very sweet bunnies, but also edited at a pace that feels a bit eerie. How did that project come to be, and what do you prioritize when creating music videos ?
Winter: Sean the drummer, made those bunnies with his girlfriend, Kati, for an exhibition. When I saw the bunny with the painted flames, I thought ‘oh my god, this would be such a sick album cover’. I knew I wanted to use that bunny for something, and Kati likes a lot of similar stuff, like small objects, tinted glass, and metals – she’s a visual artist. So I asked her to set up a stage for the bunnies and then I went to Mother of Junk and got a bunch of miniature random items. Then Cody showed me this guy, Matt, who makes animations, which was also a crazy coincidence because a bunch of people from my city in Brazil followed him. Turns out he is Brazilian and knows a lot of people that I know from my hometown. So, he actually edited all the spooky, crazy shit his own way, and added his own spin on it.Then, the music video for bedbugs is a horror film-noir. When I work with people for a video, I’m just like, ‘I really don’t want it to be too cute and twee’, but I want it so you can tell it’s a girl making it. Kind of a female gaze, not necessarily cute and with this aspect of moodiness to it.
Do either of you have a favorite song off the album to perform, or just in general?
Winter: Personally, I think “bedbugs” is my favorite and “you’re like me”. And then for performing live, Edgar is my favorite.
Williams: I think my favorite ones to play are “you’re like me” and “star power”.
Winter: Ooh, yeah. And from the record?
Williams: Maybe also those. Yeah, I don’t know, I like the parts that I play, which is kind of egotistical to say, but they’re just fun
Apart from the release of words from a wishing well, is there anything else exciting on Shower Curtain’s horizon that you would like to shout out?
Winter: We’re having our New York City record release show on November 13th. It’s going to be a ‘Stereogum Presents’ and it’ll be with Many Shiny Windows, My Transparent Eye, and a Special Guest we can’t announce yet. Then we’re going on tour in two weeks, which I’m really excited about. Then I want to come back from tour and record new stuff.
Williams: I’m excited to go to New Orleans and Chicago. Those are two of my favorite cities in general. I just love going on tour, it’s like a little rock and roll circus. You know, driving around Oklahoma and Kansas feeling like a cowboy. I’m just excited to do that.
words from a wishing well can now be streamed on all platforms. You can purchase a vinyl or cassette of the album via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk Records here. You can purchase tickets to Shower Curtain’s upcoming album release show at TV Eye in New York here.
“And my idea of me / Is a place where we fill every corner / With Trinkets and Horses” sings like an open letter, where the past, present and future speak to each other in tones of grace and understanding as things are always uncertain, but each step forward is fulfilled by who you choose to bring along the way. One year ago, Mariah Houston and Alan Howard (Sleep Habits) released Trinkets and Horses, a split EP that has become a point of celebration for the two artists, both in what it has come to represent on its own, as well as what they have accomplished since.
Having met in college, the duo began to collaborate on anything they could, working out the early iterations of what would be their respected solo projects. After college, Mariah moved to New York, where she has since joined the noise-rock project, Plastic, and Alan continues to make music under the name Sleep Habits in New Orleans, where he also plays and tours with artists such as Wesley Wolffe, Noa Jamir, Thomas Dollbaum and hemlock.
As these songs continue to build out their lives, the stories scratch those marks that were left behind; imprinted – irritated and molded to shape, like the markings a harsh wood fence will leave on your skin when you get up from a momentary break. With a blend of twangy daydreams, rooted folk voicings and DIY lo-fi admiration spackling in the cracks, Trinkets and Horses does not just represent a single moment in a creative project, but rather the detailed rhythm and dedicated trust that comes with a friendship.
Recently, Mariah and Alan teamed up with New Orleans-based tape label, Kiln Recordings, to release a special edition CD, marking the first time that Trinkets and Horses can be found in a physical form. Revisiting those beloved songs, the ugly hug got to catch up with the duo, Mariah in New York and Alan driving through Utah on tour, as we discussed how the album came to be, strengthening their creative collaborations, and looking back at the experience one year later.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
SR: I know that you two have been friends for a long time, but how did this creative relationship start?
MH: Alan and I met at Loyola in New Orleans where we lived across the hall from each other. What are the odds, right? We played in a few bands together, including a wind ensemble, I played French horn and Alan played trombone. And then on the first iteration of Sleep Habits I was singing..
AH: …because I was too scared [laughs].
MH: Yes, Alan was scared [laughs], so I was singing in Sleep Habits and Alan was playing a bit of guitar with me and helping me record some songs. It was very entry level stuff, we were just in college hanging out and making silly songs. Then it just kind of progressed from there to more serious songwriting and more serious collaborations. As we began to release stuff for our own projects, we thought, ‘damn, wouldn’t it be fun to go on tour? Why haven’t we done that yet? Let’s just make it happen!’ But we knew we needed something to tour behind, so we decided to record an EP together.
AH: In the grand scheme of things, it was all kind of very last minute, too. We really just said ‘fuck it’ and just immediately jumped into doing it. I think we uploaded the tracks a week before we left for the tour.
SR: As you were putting together the track list, you two were pulling out a few songs that you wrote individually that had been demoed and back-pocketed for awhile. What was the timeline in which you wrote these songs?
AH: It was pretty different for all three of my songs. “Little Smile” is pretty old and then “Pavement” was already on a Julia’s War comp in 2022. “Trinkets and Horses” was a pretty fresh song that I was messing around with at the time and just really came together.
MH: I had written “Promise” while I was living in Portland and the other two more recently. I actually wrote “Backseat” right when I moved to New York and then I wrote “Different Now” on New Year’s Day of 2023.
SR: A fresh start?
MH: Trying to [laughs]. I had done that this year again too. Maybe this could be my tradition. It feels really good.
SR: Throughout the EP, there feels to be this thematic throughline of redefining placement and growing up that really sticks out. Were there any overarching themes that you were looking to build upon or connect when choosing which songs to include?
MH: We didn’t really have a concept for this EP, so I do think a lot of the themes were accidental. It is funny to reflect on each song now and see how they overlap, because intrinsically, Alan and I have a lot of similar influences and we’ve known each other for almost seven years and have been collaborating since we met. So there is a lot of crossover in the kind of emotion and themes that come out in our songwriting. We also had a similar pace of upbringing, me being from the Midwest and Alan from Baton Rouge, we both had an itch to experience more about life, so there’s a lot that we both reflect on that feels similar.
AH: There were also a couple of songs that we were thinking about finishing that didn’t make the cut and may be too far gone to return to. But all of the decision making was very mutual.
MH: I decided to include “Backseat” at the last minute and Alan decided to include “Pavement”, which would both be considered more of the commercial songs, so we had a lot of discussion about the vision and style. But ultimately I think we just had some demos that came together naturally.
SR: Having both worked so closely together in college, and now covering a lot of physical distance in your collaboration, were there any takeaways about your own creative process that this EP brought out?
MH: Collaborating makes two things easier for me, which is holding myself accountable and executive functioning. We set deadlines for each other, so there was an element that reminded me not to put this off because there’s another person involved. Usually with my own music, I’ll just put a pin in it, but because we both have the tendency to sit on music for a long time, by the time we release it, we’re kind of dissatisfied with it. It’s not an accurate reflection of our taste and our style that we hold presently. But because this was such a quick turnaround, and because we’re working with each other and admire each other a lot, we actually released a project that we felt really confident about and really proud of.
SR: As it was your main goal to go on tour, which inspired you to make this EP in the first place, did these songs find different lives as you traveled and played them night after night? How does it feel looking back on it all now one year later?
AH: It was amazing! It was so fun to play the songs stripped down like they were written, but with single elements that came out in the recording process (Mariah singing with me/me playing slide with her). It felt really good to make new friends and see how people reacted to the music. It really solidified why I love playing music and doing stuff DIY. Especially it being the first tour I ever went on.
SR: Now you are celebrating the one year anniversary of Trinkets and Horses with a limited CD release from Kiln Recordings? What made you want to mark this anniversary by re-releasing the album?
AH: We had always thought about releasing this EP with some extra tracks, like we had these backyard recordings that we did at Carolina’s (hemlock) house in Chicago while we were on tour, so those are on the re-release. And we’ve always just really wanted a physical of the album.
MH: But also, Kiln is based in New Orleans and has supported our friends and our community there, like some of Alan’s other projects and Wesley Wolffe, so it’s exciting to work with them regardless. They are very deliberate, make really great art and on top of it all, they’re people we know personally, so it feels good to collaborate like that with them.
SR: Do you two have any plans to collaborate again in the future?
AH: Yeah, we’ve already been working on stuff together! I’ve been playing bass on Mariah’s new record and she’s going to be singing on my new record. But I mean, if we’re talking about collaboration, to me it feels like Mariah is just part of Sleep Habits at this point. So yeah, definitely gonna have her on the record.
MH: In any formal or full band iteration of my music, Alan will have a place. And if by chance we live in the same place again one day, I know that that will come into fruition. Whether I’m singing or playing guitar I know I’ll have a place in Sleep Habits, and when we record it doesn’t matter where we are, we can always send each other tracks. And I did record some of my album that I’m working on now in New Orleans, so Alan was there with me.
You can now order the special edition of Trinkets and Horses from Kiln Recordings, which includes two never before released backyard recordings of “Pavement” and “Trinkets and Horses” ft. hemlock, completed with a 14 page booklet including the artists’ handwritten lyrics.
Twye is the solo project of Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Jacob Grissom, who has made a career as a session and touring musician for acts like Kate Bollinger, Brennan Wedl, Heaven Honey and others through the years. Twye feels like a rather hidden project, and to Grissom’s own control, Big Sky marks his first leap into songwriting. In search of his own personal relationship with this new creative freedom came a collection of songs that represent not only his individual work, but a chance to rediscover his entire journey with music and collaboration to this point.
With unhurried pacing, charming melodies and an undeniable impression of nostalgia, Big Sky becomes a place to sit – breathing in and out of lush and thoughtful instrumentals that have you take in your surroundings wherever you may be. Written and recorded months apart from each other, these four songs don’t represent moments that just pass by, but were released already having been lived in. The textured layers of acoustic grooves, delicate harmonies and distinguished spouts of distortion colorfully animate the minute and tricky moments of comfort, love, anxiety and loss that becomes so familiar with each listen.
I recently got to catch up with Grissom, as we discussed what songwriting means to him, balancing distant memories in his writing and redefining his creative practice and trust through Big Sky.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Shea Roney: How has the album rollout been? It has felt very exciting watching all the shout outs and people sharing it.
Jacob Grissom: It was pretty low key which I sort of did on purpose. I didn’t tell anyone it was coming out, but a lot of people reached out and a lot of people listened which surprised me. I haven’t even put it in my bio or anything yet, which I probably should do, but it was just kind of a test run to see how I felt about releasing music in the first place, but it has been super encouraging.
SR: So you described Big Sky as your first rock n roll release. What made you want to take on this project?
JG: I’ve been making music for a long time, mostly just involved in other people’s projects as a drummer. I’ve put out electronic music all throughout high school, which is mostly scrubbed from the Internet, although I did put out an ambient project three years ago under the same name. I wanted to continue doing it, but I sort of lost interest in the long form instrumental medium. I’ve wanted to make rock songs for a long time and I’ve had a sound in my head for years now that I was hoping I could just find. I feel like I still haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for, but some of the music I’m working on now is a lot closer to that vision that I had and it’s been really exciting to get closer and closer each time and build a vocabulary musically that I can work with. I’m still a novice, so that process of exploring the instrument and my voice is really exciting because I think everyone is capable of so much more than they think they are. I just spent so many years trying to stay in my lane as a drummer, but I decided to let go of that and I became so enamored by so many artists who made these wonderful records when they’re teenagers and don’t know anything about guitar or singing or music theory. I realized that that is exactly where I fall, so I figured I might as well give it a shot.
SR: As you talk about this sound you have in your head, are there boxes that you check off as you feel like you’re getting closer to what you envision, but can’t quite articulate?
JG: I think a lot of it has to do with being able to write songs that I’m physically capable of performing. I have never done a live show and I don’t even have plans to yet, but so much of the music that I love, I’ll try to cover it, and I have a very limited vocal range so sometimes it’s just not even physically comfortable for me to perform them. When I do find a song that I’ve written that feels comfortable for me to sing and it has a pace that I’m comfortable with, that’s kind of where that feeling comes from. Everybody has a sort of built in natural tempo that feels comfortable to them, and as a drummer, I’ve always understood that. I really love songs that sort of meander and find their way to these different climaxes in incremental ways. But every week I hear a new record or rediscover something that I love and I want to attach myself to that musically somehow and so I have a list of like twenty different sounds and attitudes that I want to somehow combine one day. I’m still at the very bottom of this longer journey that I see for myself.
SR: Can you tell me about the musical relationships you have made that helped with this record? Is collaboration something you are drawn to? Are there things about your own process within a solo environment that you learned when working with others?
JG: Because this is the first time I’ve really been in the studio and been the boss, I think I kind of took advantage of that a little bit and tried to stick with my vision as much as I could. But I made it a point to surround myself with people that I really trust and have worked with for a long time. A lot of the songs that were released were pretty close to the demos, except instrumentally, because the voices that my friends have on their instruments definitely take the song to a different place. I think when I started this project I wanted it to become more collaborative, and then, as I started to write songs, I found that it was fulfilling to not ignore these really specific ideas that I had that usually get left behind when you go into the studio. So a lot of them I did work on after I would record them. I’d come home and add stuff there, and there were several instances where I took little artifacts from my demos and superimposed them onto the other recording, because that version of the song is what made me want to go in the studio and record it in the first place.
But the people that worked on these songs are irreplaceable, and I couldn’t have made any of it without them. There were times where I just handed it off to the musicians and said, ‘do your thing’, and then there were times where I had to do a little bit of revision. It’s been a slow education trying to figure out how to manage a recording session. I read this interview with music producer, Andrew Sarlo, and he was stressing how important it is to bring other people into your creative process if you want things to be complete and to feel complete. There were times where I thought about just trying to record it all myself, which I think I could physically do, but having other people involved who are excited about it really kept me pushing forward.
SR: I guess I’ll ask you this following Sarlo, now that it’s out and you’ve had a few weeks to sit with it, does this EP feel complete to you?
JG: It feels a lot more complete than I thought it would. One of my biggest insecurities about it before I released it was how different the songs sounded to me sonically because they were all recorded in different ways, with different people in different studios and different times of the year, even different points in this journey of trying to learn how to write songs. So I was worried that it wouldn’t feel cohesive and I also thought that four songs was a weird length for an EP. There are parts that it does feel a little bit incomplete because I know that I’ve left behind some songs that I was once excited about, but it definitely feels like each song on there is sort of my own little success in some kind of way. I wanted to incorporate songs that were meaningful to me, and I wanted to write songs about my family, and where I’m from and I think they all represent different ambitions towards songwriting to me. But I think moving forward, I want to try to create more cohesive bodies of work. My goal is to be more prolific and just release a bunch of songs and continue writing, to where the distance between the releases is much shorter. That way I can represent different stages of my life.
SR: As you travel, recording portions of these songs at different times and in different places, and even including a lot of samples that you recorded in your bedroom, what was your intention for piecing together this college of recording techniques and sounds?
JG: I think I originally viewed it as something that I would try to disguise as much as I could. When I was in the studio none of the vocals were done at the same time as the instrumental tracks. I’m not a trained singer, I’ve never sang on stage, so coming up with melodies is hard enough, and recording the vocals is an excruciating process for me. I found that the best performances for me were when I’m up here in my room and no one can hear me and I can explore different melodic things and sound silly. I wanted there to be a lightness when I’m recording, and anytime I start to feel this sort of pressure to produce something that people are gonna appreciate, I lose my inspiration. So I think anytime that I’ve flown the recordings out to add stuff elsewhere, it’s come out of this need for the recording process to be a fun and innocent experience. As much as I wanted everything to be done at the same time in the same headspace, sometimes I would lose that headspace and have to get it back later when I was in a different setting.
SR: I do find some lightness in the stories that you tell lyrically, even though you’re touching upon moments of lost memory or friendships ending, you create your presence in these songs, making them extremely approachable. Being primarily a drummer, was writing lyrics a new task for you to learn?
JG: Definitely a new task for me. I have always been a secret writer, nothing that I ever felt like publishing, but writing songs and melodies was new to me. Writing lyrics wasn’t necessarily an afterthought, but I figured I might as well just pile it on to the list of things that I’m trying to learn how to do. I eventually did start to find a lyrical pace that I felt was genuine, even though some of those lyrics were heavily revised. I found when I started writing, I was trying to write love songs, you know, and I really just could not figure out how to express that in song. I think the oldest song on there is “Hollow” and I made a point to just write a song about my buddies and people I grew up with at the skatepark. It was more freeing to write about these people in my life because when you write a love song, you kind of expect the person you love to listen to it and I think that held me back a lot when I was trying to do that. So I figured, if I’m just writing about people I grew up with, it was easier to find this sort of nostalgia that goes back further into this larger pool of inspiration and memories.
SR: One thing that I was drawn to in your lyrics is that in a handful of these tunes you animate this feeling of distance, whether on “Hallow” about a shifting relationship or “Annie” illustrating a gap in memories. Were you hoping to find answers, or at least bring something close to an answer more in reach when characterizing this complex feeling within the minute details?
JG: None of the songs were written as an immediate response. I mean, “Annie” I wrote maybe a few months after my grandmother passed, but all the memories that I’m recalling are from childhood basically — it’s just funny how some things will stick in your mind and you can’t really anticipate which memories are gonna resonate with you in the long term. I think a lot of the stuff that I found easy to write about was a result of this mysterious perspective that I end up with and I find it easier to write when I sort of distance myself from these memories. It’s more about what was there and what I saw, and not exactly what my relationship was or how I felt at the time. There’s certainly exceptions, but I think the way that certain memories will stick around is kind of inspiring, and I think it always means something when you have this really random memory from childhood that is totally inconsequential to your life or any other event that happens, so it’s always worth writing down at least to try to see what kind of meaning you can gather from it.
SR: Do you have anything coming up that you are looking forward to?
JG: I’ve recorded a handful of songs with my dream team of buddies, most of whom were involved with what I have recorded already or have released. I think I’m just excited to keep trying to get better at writing and to try to have my voice come through more clearly. Like I said, I have a couple of songs that I’m working on that I feel are closer to the vision that I have, and that’s such a good feeling. I feel like I’m just sort of chipping away at this enormous boulder, and it doesn’t matter if it ever goes away, it’ll just keep getting smaller. I don’t really see songwriting as a lifelong adventure for me that I really have any plans for other than just improving on it. Since I’ve been a working musician for many years now, touring, recording and presenting myself as this professional musician, it’s really fun to have this relationship with music again that feels childlike. I love feeling like an amateur at what I’m doing, and still get away with it somehow. I want to maintain that kind of innocence as long as I can because I think that is what makes music worthwhile to make and to listen to.
You can listen to Big Sky out on all platforms now.
Written by Shea Roney | Album cover by Claire Adams
With a certain tenacity, untethered to any form of expectations or rules, New York-based band Plastic moves along through the sparks and dust of their debut full length album, Crabwalk. Released last week, Crabwalk is a lumbering 76 minutes of intense dynamics and alt-rock passion; the lows are intoxicating with a ledger to minimalist exceptionalism and the highs fight through melodic wear and tear to find addictive resolve that, on the whole, begins to feel conceptually engaging and strategically pure the more you sit in it.
Beginning as a solo project by guitarist and songwriter, George Schatzlein (guitars/vocals/electronics), Plastic has been slowly molding into what it is now, with new members Wylie De Groff (bass), Nigel Meyer (guitars), Sam Kurzydlo (drums/electronics) and most recently, Mariah Houston (vocals/guitar) redefining the band with a precise and expansive mindset of five distinct voices.
the ugly hug recently sat down with all five members of Plastic on a Sunday morning, and what was planned as an interview felt like a first hand glimpse at a band whose functionality and collaborative spirit pairs with an intense trust and exciting friendship, as we discussed the record and what they have in mind going forward.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Shea Roney: Last week you guys released Crabwalk into the world. How has the album roll out been?
Sam Kurzydlo: It’s been interesting, I think particularly in handling a lot of the in house stuff. We’ve been very lucky to have view no country from Texas working with us on physicals, but it’s been an interesting process. Sort of figuring out what works for us and troubleshooting as we go.
George Schatzlein: You kind of just run into the problems as you go and you have to figure it out from there. Trial by fire; you can really only learn by doing.
Nigel Meyer: Yeah, even yesterday, I was going to start dubbing tapes to have some physicals at the release show, and I realized that the tapes I have are too short for the album. So, rookie mistakes on some ends.
GS: But some of it’s been pretty seamless, kind of long winded frankly, at least. I’ll speak for myself when I say I am excited for it to be out so we can just be relieved. We’re excited for it to live in the world and we’re really proud of it, but most importantly, we feel like it’s a statement, not only because it’s a long piece, but it’s just an accumulation of work over a couple of years and what this band has become. This record really encapsulates the formation of ‘what is a band’ versus just someone writing songs and directing people what to do.
SR: So Plastic has one EP out as of now called Heredity. But as you have moved forward since, how did this group come together? Have any of you collaborated in the past with other projects?
Wylie De Groff: Well, this started as George’s solo project, so that EP he recorded all himself. But when I moved to New York three years ago, I just hit up George to hang out and he was like, ‘hey man, I’m putting together a band and I need a bass player. Do you want to come rehearse with us?’ That was my entry into the band.
SK: We all connected sort of serendipitously in different ways. George and Wiley knew each other back in high school. George and I had played a show together back in 2018 while he was running through Chicago. I think this lineup sort of coalesced across a year or so, intersecting with the development of this album. But this is the configuration that I think this group was always meant to be in, so it’s been really fulfilling to see that come together.
GS: It was like a nucleus of these webs of relationships from meeting at shows or playing the same bill that kind of just naturally collected throughout time. Classic music world.
Mariah Houston: We all went to music together [laughs].
SR: In this transition, going from a project that was very singular to a full collection of talents, is Plastic a fairly collaborative writing team now?
GS: It’s been slowly inclining to being that.
SK: I feel like even across the tracks written for this album that has sort of changed and I feel like the album is a document of that process in a way. It is really interesting because some of the more recently composed songs on this album are sort of signposts of things to come.
WD: The really long, gnarly song, “Touchdown”, which was a totally different song beforehand, was something that we gigged out for a bit and fully tracked in the studio. And then, when George was recording vocals, he just didn’t feel like it fit with the rest of the album, and we all kind of agreed and decided to maybe chop it. But instead, we saw that we had the stems of this song, and wanted to see what we could do with it and we turned it into something that started mostly in George’s head and ended up being more of an expression of what the band is now as a fuller unit working together.
SK: It went from being a song that never quite connected with me to being my favorite thing on the album.
GS: When you’re starting a project, you want to be as articulate and concise as you can be so that you’re not just banking on people to make up their own parts. But when you know you play with musicians organically, and learn to trust them, they start to write parts that suit their playing more. But I think in the context of this being a live rock band, it’s a lot easier to have more liberties with parts and it’s just progressed to be that way in the studio which has become my dream for this band’s future. We all trust each other’s taste and opinions, so now it can naturally be collaborative, because we all equally care about it. I feel like we’ve all been in bands where maybe effort isn’t always put in, but now it feels like we all really do care about this project and everybody wants to put in the best they can.
SR: Yeah, I mean that clearly stands out when sitting with the album, catching onto those individual parts and feeling the energy and focus in its writing and seeing it come together to create this massive piece.
SK: I think it’s our blessing and our curse that we think about stuff for ages and ages. But then I feel like the final product does always display that level of consideration and thought and care.
SR: With that in mind, when did you feel that these tracks were finished?
GS: When I finished the vocals, which took me way too long [laughs]. We broke it up into 3 recording sessions for main tracking and I didn’t do vocals in the studio, so it got dragged out, but I think really, it wasn’t that long ago when it felt like we were done with it. “Touchdown” to me was like, ‘okay, this feels fresh. This feels like a good thing to reference where we’re going’. It just made the record well rounded to me, when the album itself is not extremely linear.
NM: I can think of at least one or two instances where the parts I play now live aren’t exactly the parts that I played on the record because it’s just progressed. When we recorded the instrumentals, we didn’t have Mariah in the band yet, so going forward and potentially bringing in new instrumentation and reworking the songs into a three part guitar piece would definitely bring out some of these songs in a different way. I think they’re always going to mutate. The record is a snapshot of what they are now, but we know they’re not set in stone.
SR: I want to talk about the length, because it feels rare these days to find an album that goes over 35 minutes. Crabwalk tracks in at 76 minutes with a handful of tracks stretching over 7 minutes. As your debut LP, what parts of building such an extensive project do you think showcases what makes you stand out as a group?
SK: I think from the beginning we endeavored to approach it in a very experiential way. I think that all of us found it important to make something that you could sort of live in for a while, taking you for a ride with different detours and new stops popping up. And yeah, who’s to say our next thing might be nice and lean, but this one from the start was important to us, not length for length’s sake, but we wanted to create something that felt very immersive and had a beginning and an end.
WD: I think that the moments that feel most like us are the long moments like “Touchdown” and “Satiation”, where the first part of ‘Satiation’ is a normal song structure and then the second part really goes out into space. Even before it reached the studio version, that was definitely the idea we played with.
SK: I think, too, we’re not traditionalist by any means, and we’re all just students of the distinct form of music we enjoy. But I do feel like the streaming ecosystem does incentivize singles, EPs and shorter form releases.
GS: The way that that is being prioritized through streaming, to basically push shorter records, and branding music in that way, it doesn’t come naturally to us. We all love those records, but I think we’re inspired by a lot of long records at the end of the day. Something to put on in the car and drive down the highway when you have the patience and time to listen to something. It’s really, really valuable.
SK: And more recently I feel like we’re in a good spot, too, where it seems like the songs that resonate most with people when we play live are the longer, weirder, more meandering ones. That’s validating in a lot of ways, but it’s also nice that it kind of gives us permission to be a little indulgent in a way that’s really fun and inspiring.
WD: Yeah, I mean the most validating phrase we’ve gotten is like, ‘oh, this doesn’t feel like a seven minute song’. We love that. That’s the goal, to aim for when the length is natural and due to the shape of the music, not length for length sake, in the same way that we’re on purpose not keeping it short just for short sake.
SR: Flip floppin’ here, one thing that I was drawn to were those little interludes, “Try Again”, “Andrew” and “Drawn”, where if just by themselves would feel random, but when in their correct spot, bring this natural progression from the different styles that encompass the album. What was the story and the process behind these inclusions?
GS: As far as track listing came along, whatever Crabwalk means to me, when you’re really kind of at the end of a project and you’ve got these chunks of songs you start to see the little gaps that could be filled in. What we tried to do, as far as whether it’s mood, texture, aesthetic, energy. or even themes, you can kind of find one of those and patch them together to just smooth it out.
SK: “Drawn” was something I whipped up for live shows when we needed to change tunings and that track evolved out of one of those interstitial pieces I put together. But it became a personal expression for me when working at the office and trying to fold music into my life as much as time allows, I’m grateful that the rest of the group gave me the chance to clean it up to live in an environment beyond the stage.
WD: “Andrew” was just a voicemail, and I think we were listening to it when we were tracking “Wannabe”. I remember we played it on tour all the time because it was so funny and it gave us a chance to just be cheeky.
GS: Yeah, I feel like as a writer myself, I kind of naturally gravitate towards writing lyrics and songs that are maybe slightly abstract and more introspective, and I kind of wanted to just feel like I am a person. I can also be funny and have a sense of humor [laughs].
MH: Yeah, it’s so important to have your personality in your music. What makes a band really special to me is when I get to be really invested in their lore as people and I am able to identify that in their music. I think it’s nice that we have those moments of humor and personality, because we are funny [laughs].
SR: George, a lot of your lyricism is very textured and vivid, which as a listener, greatly enhances this almost dystopian feel to the album. Was there a contextualized throughline that you tried to pull through on the album within your writing?
GS: I guess similar to the instrumentation, all of a sudden it reveals itself subconsciously and then you start patching it together and you realize, for me at least, the subconscious will start relating to a theme. Sometimes it just happens where it’s laid out well enough and just feels natural. Maybe there is a throughline, but there were no sort of preconceived larger concepts. I think Crabwalk became fitting for the title because it felt like an early display of what this album was stepping into with this new phase of more collaboration. To me, the idea of a crab is this constant, but awkward and lateral motion, often repeating steps, which can become really exhausting and a difficult way of moving, but there’s always motion forward.
SR: Mariah did you contribute any lyrics to the album?
MH: I feel like my contribution to the album was very last minute. All of the instrumentals were tracked long before I was in the band and then the vocals I added were done as soon as George tracked his. It was very down to the wire.
GS: That’s what is really exciting about what’s next because now the ideas are getting slowly but surely pitched in this collaboration of talents. I don’t know what it’s gonna sound like at all, but this next record is just not gonna sound close to Crabwalk. Not that we’re trying to deliberately jump away from it, but I just think this specific way of going about it is just naturally going to make it very, very different. It’s pretty much the biggest leap you can make as a band, to make it sound different going from a pretty singular songwriter to a group of five people. I wouldn’t say the identity of the band is shifting because this has been the established identity, but this will be the next archive.
MH: I think it’s exciting for me to be in a project that is so drastically different from my personal projects. I’ve always enjoyed being in bands, and have always ended up in bands that are very different from my own music. I think George and I have very different lyrical writing styles, but it’s exciting to leave my comfort zone and potentially collaborate on stuff that’s not what I’m used to writing. I feel the same when playing with these guys, too. This is the first group of people I’ve ever jammed with, which was scary at first, and then it quickly became very fun. There’s something to be said about trusting each other.
GS: Yeah, and trusting that it’s not going to always work out the first time, of course, but once you kind of figure out how to work together in that way, where everybody’s pretty mature, when someone has something to contribute there’s a collective decision and encouragement. I think that allows me to have so much certainty and confidence and conviction that whatever we try next will be great.
SR:That sounds extremely healthy.
NM: Yeah, the writing is probably the healthiest part of the band [laughs].
Plastic is releasing a limited run of Crabwalk on CD via view no country. Following the album release, Plastic will embark on a 10-date tour across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic United States in October.
dog eyes is the lo-fi duo of Hailey Firstman and Davis Leach, who, as of signing to Grand Jury Music, released their sophomore album holy friend last month. This marked an exciting next step for the Oakland-based duo, as they continue to expand their range as well as evolve into their own endearing sound and conceptual vision as a homegrown project.
holy friend is a sonic reverie that flows through full, vibrant and admirable lo-fi production. It is not an album that rejects minimalism, playing amongst a multitude of layered harmonies and textured instrumental tinkerings, but rather one that embraces a process of both trust in the duos collaborative strengths as well as the simplicity in writing what you know best.
The intimacy at which Firstman and Leach perform from feels like the weight of a large and colorful comforter. Hiding underneath one was often what sleepovers were resorted to as a kid – flash light in hand, accidentally blinding one eye at a time, only to keep the party going in forcefully hushed secrecy because you know you were supposed to be asleep an hour ago. Those are the moments that stick to you and dog eyes knows it. As a collection, holy friend is an embodiment of memories like that, the small things; uncontrollable fits of cry-laughing, awkward relational firsts, finally knowing that your roommate’s dog loves you, the last drive in a cherished old car, or simply just making music with your best friend.
We recently got to catch up with the duo, discussing their strengths as collaborators and friends, articulating relationships through unique lenses, defining all goodness through the ‘holy friend’ and obviously, dogs.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Photo by Tyler Hentges
Shea Roney: Congrats on the release! How has it been going since the rollout?
Hailey Firstman: It’s been great! It feels really good to have it out there.
Davis Leach: It’s definitely the most exciting release that we’ve ever done. It’s just been really cool connecting with random people who reach out because they listened to it.
SR: Having worked closely together before on Mr. Marigold and your dog eyes debut, good, proper send off, were there any shifts, not only in your style, but the way you two collaborated that you saw stand out on holy friend?
HL: Well, we initially started working together on my project Mr. Marigold when Davis offered to help me record it and that’s when we first became friends. I feel like with each new thing we’ve done it’s been a progression of our tastes together, and also a progression of what we like when we’re making stuff together. It’s just really fun.
DL: I mean, all of it is just fun. I feel like, at least right now, this is just kind of our hobby. So you know, we both have jobs and whatnot. But with holy friend, [speaking to Hailey] were you living in the Bay Area at that point?
HF: I was probably halfway through moving.
DL: Okay yeah, so that first album, [Hailey] was living like three hours south, so she would come up, and we would just have weekend-long benders of recording music, and that kind of formed our habits. We’d be up really late every night and on Sunday night she would leave at like 2 AM. But when recording holy friend, there was part of it where she was actually living up here.
HF: So it was a little slightly healthier. Maybe a little [laughs].
SR: The album comes together in such a beautiful collage of sounds and textures that still feel cohesive as an overall project. I am wondering where this collective idea came from. Was it brought out with each individual song to match meanings and expressions or was it decided on prior to recording?
HF: I think that we do something where we both get really into specific albums at the same time, where we can’t stop listening to them. We had a couple like that. So it’s definitely some of those albums mixed with what we feel in the song.
DL: Essentially it comes down to everything we can do to rip off this album [laughs]. But then the thing is, it never sounds like it, just because, you know, we’re doing home recording with a synthesizer and like a weird loop pedal that makes weird sounds, so we try and then something else happens and we end up chasing that.
HF: There were definitely some songs where we knew what we wanted them to sound like. The song ‘fair’ was all on GarageBand and my vocals are on my laptop microphone and I recorded them when I was laying in my bed. True bedroom pop [laughs].
SR: I find ‘fair’ to be such a lovely song that holds a lot of nostalgic value in the way it was recorded and produced. Where do you experience auditory nostalgia, and in the case of this song, how did you manage to capture the expressions involved?
DL: I was gonna say adding the voice memo stuff is so easy to achieve that nostalgic feel. And I mean, it’s overused a lot, but I like when it’s just barely in there. If you listen really hard to ‘fair’, you can hear Hailey saying, ‘okay, we’re gonna start on…’ and it makes me think of blowing out birthday candles or something. And then I think just trying your best to go either hyper digital to where it starts to sound messed up and robotic, that is a very nostalgic auditory sound for me. Or going the complete opposite direction, fully analog, like we have this busted up tape machine that we use a lot that is an easy way to make those emotions come out a little more too.
HF: Actually, the recording under ‘fair’ is from a completely other song that me and my friend made, and I just autotuned it to be in the key of the song. But I feel like there’s always nostalgia in hearing a random conversation with a good friend, and I also sped up my voice to be a little higher which kind of sounds like I’m a kid.
SR: I like how the song ‘moment’ feels to be given its very own standout moment on the album, living in this standard pop sound, but also continuing that emotional throughline of nostalgia as well.
HF: Well at first we were very into the idea of our second album being a pop album, like a true pop album. I feel like ‘moment’ is kind of the only actual pop song that came out of our making a pop album [laughs].
DL: But we did try a couple of other ones, but they just didn’t work as well as ‘moment’. That was probably the hardest song for me because it was kind of a pain getting that one done. And then at the end, I feel like we weren’t super happy with it until my roommate Cameron actually started mixing it.
HF: We have certain songs that we call “Hailey GarageBand songs” at first, where I just kind of get crazy with GarageBand or Logic. I wrote ‘moment’ while I was also producing it, which is kind of unlike a lot of other songs I write. But I just remember being very excited when I wrote, “if I could hold this moment in my hands”, and I had to check to make sure no one else has written that yet [laughs]. It can go both ways, it’s earnest and could not be earnest as well, and yeah, kind of hearkens to that early 2000’s cheesy love song, but it’s truly how I felt.
SR: More often than not, when we think of a relationship album, we are prone to think of romantic love or heartbreak. But what I admire so much about holy friend is I can jump from a song about losing a childhood friend to losing a cherished car, and yet it’s still a universal and relatable feeling that is just put through a different and unique lens.Can you tell me about your experience repurposing what a ‘relationship’ album can be?
HF: I think I am just very interested in relationships of all kinds in general and how people fall into patterns. Sometimes even when I am writing a song to understand an experience, even if it’s not an experience I’ve necessarily had before, it’s something I enjoy. Almost like writing a book about something that you’ve never done and putting yourself into a character or experience. You can feel it and you know it. It helps to process my own things.
DL: Yeah, I guess writing a breakup album, you know, happens a lot, but while recording holy friend I was really into thinking about platonic friendships and a lot of the rights and wrongs that can happen in those relationships as well. You can have a love song about a friend or a breakup song about a friend too, and that’s kind of what I was thinking about the whole time.
HF: That’s true, I mean, Nora my car, that’s also a relationship I had. I actually want to make a playlist with all the songs that I’ve written about my car now. But Nora had moss growing inside because there was a little leak in it, so when it rained, the fabric on the top would get wet and it started growing moss, like a free filtration system. But there is something about a big old car that is very emotional, and now I have my mother’s cube car, which is nameless, because it’s just not as cool.
SR: When expressing the idea of the ‘holy friend’, you described it as a perfect being. Can you tell me a bit about where the holy friend comes from and did its presence shift at all while the album was coming together?
DL: At the time I had a lot of friends and people close to me that I either felt I was wronging them or vice versa. I kind of struggle socially sometimes, so I was just thinking about all these different relationships that I have and friendships that I have and I guess I was just kind of combining them all into one person.
HF: [To Davis] I remember when you were first telling me about it, you said it combines the best qualities of them, so it creates an ideal being.
DL: Yeah, now that I think about it, it’s kind of religious. I’m not religious at all, but it is kind of like a God thing. I don’t know.
HF: Like Jesus [laughs].
DL: Yeah, like Jesus [laughs]. I can’t really speak much about religion or anything, but it was kind of like the goodness in all of my friends, and thinking about that makes me feel really good.
SR: Did constructing the holy friend through writing these songs help put your own personal relationships more into perspective? Especially when walking thisfine line with such nuance and consideration when writing about them.
DL: Actually, yes, like majorly. When I would start thinking about all of my friends, I’m like, ‘man, how can I be like that?’ I know my friend would always do this, why don’t I do that for this other person and just try to be positive and work on my relationships and actually be intentional. I feel like, right now, I’m kind of in a place where my closest friends are my housemates and we’re all actually moving out at the end of this month, so now I’m having to learn how to be an actual active participant in a friendship, which sounds insane, but that’s where I’m at.
Photo by Hector Franco
SR: Were there any types of relationships or emotional connections that you found were particularly difficult to articulate?
HF: For songwriting, I’ve realized over the years that there’s kind of a sweet spot with timing with where I’m at emotionally about a situation. If there’s too much emotion, it becomes kind of muddy, like if you’re thinking about painting and there’s too many colors, it can all start blending together. Sometimes it feels good, and I need it to happen to write a song, but it doesn’t always make my favorite songs. The romantic ideal, the romanticism, or the powerful emotions recollected in tranquility, I feel like the sweet spot is once I’m at peace with a person or a situation is when I’m able to collect the nuance, like as you were talking about, and even make it kind of funny, too.
DL: I feel like there’s a lot of humor in some of your songs [to Hailey]. Like ‘firsts’, some of those lines are really funny.
HF: Yeah, and letting it sit for a little bit, or sometimes I’ll write half of a song and then months and months later I’ll finish it and get even more tranquility from it.
SR: You guys do manage to combine humor with sincerity very well. I especially like the line “I don’t exist outside of his big ears” from ‘rusty, my dog’ because it deals with this universal sense of placement and belonging that many different types of relationships have, but so adorably told through the eyes of a dog.
DL: Being perceived by a dog just melts me completely. I’m specifically singing about my roommate’s dog. His name isn’t actually rusty, but you know, that’s off the record [laughs]. I love him so much and I find myself just wondering, ‘what does he think of me?’ I always read these articles of people talking about how you need to pay attention to your dog because you are their ‘everything’, so I was thinking what would it be like to only exist to my dog, and nothing else. It’s a funny song, and it’s cute and sweet because I got my housemates involved, but it can be weird the more you think about it. I mean, we do have a lot of dog related stuff, I mean the name dog eyes, but there is so much beauty in dogs.
SR: Do you have a dog, Hailey?
HF: I don’t. I actually didn’t grow up with any animals because my mom is allergic. But I’ve lived with a dog and that’s when I started thinking about dog’s eyes. I was gonna say that one time I was Googling dog eyes, as one does, and this article popped up that was titled something like “Seeing God in your beloved dog’s eyes”. I didn’t read it, but I really liked the title [laughs].
Photo by Hector Franco
SR: Do you guys have anything coming up that you are looking forward to?
HF: We have a lot of songs we are looking forward to recording! We have a shared notes folder of the songs that we’ve each written or songs we’re writing together, and we just keep them all there for a while and simmer with them. It’s pretty giant, which is a cool problem to have, but this is the longest pause we’ve ever taken between albums and I think that’s good.
DL: Yeah and again, at least for right now, this is just a hobby for us. But with the signing to Grand Jury and having a lot of people listening, like way more than ever before, we’re definitely thinking about recording our next record, playing a lot of shows, or maybe doing a small tour. But at the end of the day we just really enjoy making music because it is just very foundational to our friendship.
holy friend is out on all platforms now as well as a limited edition deluxe cassette of holy friend and dog eyes’ first record good, proper send off.
Written by Shea Roney | Feature Photo by Hector Franco
“I think that it is good to want to have a community get together once a week, sing some music together, read together, do all those things,” McKenna acknowledges, a type of grateful reflection across her face as she discussed her approaching EP release show. “I have just had to seek structure and community in different ways, and I think Chicago has been very open to that.”
Edie McKenna is best known for her leading role in the Chicago-based alternative group, Modern Nun, who have spent the last few years dedicated to creating spaces built on acceptance and collective experience through music and community.
With the release of her debut solo EP, For Edie, out everywhere today via Devil Town Tapes, McKenna is leaning more into her folk roots – reliving and repurposing the words she wrote almost a half decade ago. It’s an open letter to her younger self, only four songs long, as For Edie carries past trauma with such confidence – a striking invitation into the life she lived and where she has been headed ever since.
I recently got to sit down with McKenna to discuss the new EP, learning to redefine imprinted expectations and the joy found in mutual congregation.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Photo by Cora Kinney
Shea Roney: What was the transition like from St. Paul, Minnesota to Chicago? Where did you find yourself in the music scene here?
Edie McKenna: I graduated in high school in 2016 and moved to Chicago to go to DePaul. I really hadn’t been on my own before and it was really hard. I ended up dropping out of college because I just wasn’t doing well, but I made my core group of friends at DePaul and I fell in love with Chicago. My friend Sophie, whose brother is in the band The Slaps, saw the music that I started posting online and asked if I wanted to open for them. That’s when I had my friend Lee [Simmons], of Modern Nun, come play guitar with me. I think that the music scene was really lacking a lot of non-cis men at the time, so I think we just kept getting asked to play shows. Not to discount any of the non-cis men bands at the time, I just wasn’t aware of them because I was so new. I always was obsessed with indie and folk music, but I thought that I would be, I don’t know, a lawyer or whatever you think you’re going to be when you’re younger. I would just play music for fun, but then it kind of kept going and now I really love it, so I just kept going.
SR: In the past with Modern Nun, your recording sessions were more of what you described as ‘collective experiences of trial and error’. What was it like when you decided to take on these songs?
EM: Maybe this is just for me, but I find recording folk music just a little bit easier because it’s a little more straightforward and I don’t mind being so cheesy. Particularly with these songs, because I wrote them so long ago, the cheesiness is abundant. I don’t care if we’re just playing three chords, that’s fine with me. Whereas, with Modern Nun, it’s just different in that the music is a bit more complicated in a way.
SR: It’s funny because you said you never thought you would put these songs out, claiming that they were ‘too cheesy’ or ‘simple’. Did you find that there came either a motivation or a need for these songs to find daylight?
EM: I don’t know, I felt like I was just sitting on them. I’m lucky to have a really supportive group of friends who knew these songs, particularly “Lava Lamp”, which was one of the first songs I remember ever writing. I just had wanted to work with Seth [Beck] (Rat Future Recordings) for a minute because we were friends outside of this. When we finally got to work together I already had those songs and thought I might as well just try it. It went so well that I was like, why not make it a whole project? This whole thing has been a ‘why not’ sort of situation.
SR: Did the songs go through any changes from when you originally wrote them?
EM: They didn’t really undergo many changes, but I have been really under the influence of distortion, like Neil Young or MJ Lenderman vibe lately. I was just craving to add that to the folk music because I just think it’s so fun. We definitely tweaked them a little bit, because I’m not really a riffer and I wanted Seth, Zack [Peterson] and Eric [Beck] to be able to play off it, so we expanded some of the bridges and the intros and outros, definitely. But the lyrics stayed the same.
SR: Throughout this EP, you write from your own lens of some pretty difficult subject matters, especially on songs like “Kick in the Shin” and “Hail Mary”. What was it like to revitalize those moments and those feelings? Has revisiting these songs sharpened your understanding of your path of healing at all?
EM: I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I definitely have been feeling like I am almost ready to move on from these things. And in order to move on from them, I wanted to put these songs out. I do feel like I have processed these events and feelings and now when I write I don’t talk about them as much anymore. Like this EP was me writing about those experiences. When I named Modern Nun, that was about those experiences. But it is interesting to talk about it and I feel really proud about how far I’ve come. Songs are so specific and I think the best songs in my opinion are really specific moments or stories. It’s like time travel to those moments, but then I get to add something that I’m interested in now, like distortion, and it becomes a merging of two times in my life.
SR: “Swinging” feels like you are cutting yourself some slack, almost a brief grace period on the EP. Can you tell me about that song?
EM: That song is so gay. I’m sure it is definitely something that a lot of queer people experience, like when it’s two people not raised as men trying to make a move on each other. I remember it was impossible, the first date was like a week long and nothing happened, and I was like, ‘okay, that’s kind of the vibe.’ But it gets easier as you get older. That’s kind of what I was writing about. It’s so cute and it’s fun and I’m proud of it. I wanted to release it because I knew it is catchy, but whoa, I cringe. Just a little. Just a little.
SR: There are a lot of instances of longing in these songs – to be accepted, to be loved, etc. Do you feel like you have caught up to those feelings?
EM: No, I don’t think I’ve caught up to those feelings. I definitely think I’ve found my people and I’ve found it in other ways and in moments, but I think that it’s eternal. That feeling was so strong in high school and in early college when I wrote these songs, because, particularly being queer, it was just like, ‘I’m never going to act on these things’, or even, ‘I’m just going to pretend… ’. I also have extreme anxiety, so I get those feelings confused – excitement or yearning with like genuine fear, I get them really confused, so I think it makes the feelings stronger. But I think if you don’t have something to yearn for, what’s the point? It’s like having a crush on life, you’ve got to have something to be excited about it.
SR: While still talking about this longing, did the use of physical placeholders in your writing, such as sunglasses, a lava lamp, or even a malleable prayer make things feel more obtainable, or even just more realistic?
EM: My favorite kind of writing is just very straightforward because I really like someone who respects the intelligence of the reader and the listener. When I was first starting to write songs that I liked, the easiest way to do that is to just be observant and recognize, ‘this is my point of view’. I definitely think that it made the answers more realistic. I think using objects really just grounded me in the present moment because I felt so out of control and in the clouds in my life. They brought my answers into real life and made everything seem real at a time when I was really existing and hiding in my head.
SR: You grew up very religious, and I won’t ask you to dive back into it, but growing up in the foundations of congregation – which at its barebones is people who believe in the same thing/entity – have you found a draw to that same kind of belief when it comes to the local music community here?
EM: Totally, there are a lot of similarities. The things that I grew up doing, in theory, were amazing. Getting together once a week, singing, seeing some art, being with your family, being with other people, reading, talking about the reading, eating together – structure. I think I really struggle because a lot of things in my life I feel like I went from zero to a hundred. I went from not knowing what being gay was and going to private school where you got in trouble for doing the wrong thing always, to immediately smoking weed, etc. I just crave structure and I crave a very rigid routine and seeking that in my adult life has been really complicated. I had to seek structure in different ways through my friends here, which has been a huge learning experience because it’s like, ‘okay, I am living my truth. I am doing what I thought I would be doing just in a different way.’ That’s really nice to think about.
Written by Shea Roney | Feature Photo by Clare O’Mahony
For Edie is out every where today with a limited run of cassettes via Devil Town Tapes
“I don’t know, it kind of goes back to, ‘why do you listen to depressing music?”, Kauffman brings up. “I think it’s more about a connection. If other people are feeling that, and you know that, why not talk about it?”
Last month, Abel released one of the most brash and heartfelt records of the year in Dizzy Spell. Fronted by Isaac Kauffman, the Columbus-based band took a much more collaborative approach to writing and recording, developing their sound further into a collective mix of brutal distortion and folk solidarity that reaches to the heart of the Midwest underground.
I recently got to catch up with Kauffman to discuss the record, shuffling through the teeth rattling noise, broken pop hooks and heart wrenching sincerity that makes Dizzy Spell a record worth holding on tight to.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Abel
Shea Roney: Dizzy Spell marked a much more collaborative approach to anything Abel has done before. Where did you see shifts in your process? Did you find any hidden strengths when collaborating as a full group?
Isaac Kauffman: Just in terms of sheer layering, I think there were a lot of shifts, because I think in the past it’s been pretty cut and dry (4 track type recordings and stuff). But now there’s room for so much more play, and honestly, I feel like if anything, the more we implement collaboration, the more and more we’re figuring out who should be doing this and who should be doing that, and who’s really bad at this, and who’s really good at that. So I mean, I guess both strengths and weaknesses, but I’d say we’re learning a lot about our strengths in terms of ‘can we riff on something?’ or ‘can we actually improv or not?’, that kind of thing.
SR: These songs are a mixture of both songs you have been playing for a few years now as well as newly written ones. How did this collection come to be? Where do the older songs sit with you now as they are finally released?
IK: First and foremost, there was “Rut” which we originally dropped back in 2021. That just kind of started this phase where I wanted to create more gazy atmospheres and just really see what I could do with distortion and producing distortion. In the past, we’ve been really clean cut, and after “Rut”, we were trying to figure out where to go. I feel like that’s kind of where this came about, because we definitely had the itch to make more singer-songwriter type songs, but I think more so, we just wanted to really advance our live sound to a studio and to tape, you know, to something final. The past two years we’ve done a few tours and just doing that made us realize that we’re more so of a live band and we want to make sure that that comes across in our recordings.
SR: So has playing these songs live help develop and flesh out what we hear on the album? How quickly do you begin to play a song live once it has been written?
IK: We usually play stuff pretty quickly. We’re already playing shows where 70% of our set isn’t even Dizzy Spell anymore. Most of these songs we were able to develop live except for “Wanna”, just because it was originally released two years ago before that EP (Leave You Hanging) with Candlepin and it was way more hyper-poppy. So playing that live I think we realized that we wanted to go a more noisy route; like blow up our speakers type deal at the end. When Brynna [Hilman] joined the band, we decided, ‘okay, we need to sit back and actually figure out how to make the EQ spectrum work on all of these amps’. So I think “Rut” evolved simply because we got to evolve our tones.
SR: After the album was released, you said on an Instagram post, “I hope you find peace within the noise”. I find that to be a very deliberate and understanding statement towards these songs as a listener who gets to experience them, first from a distance, and then fully enveloped. Where do you find peace in the noise?
IK: I appreciate that first off. Secondly, I think I just find peace knowing that I was able to create something and was able to get any emotion outside of my body. I think it’s very peaceful to be able to play any instrument, or even sing. I think that always just brings peace to most creative, or at least musically inspired people. So yeah, in the process of creation, I found a lot of peace.
SR: As the primary producer and writer, did you find it important to play with the different dynamics and styles throughout the album? What was the thought process of going from shoegazey walls of sound to twangy acoustic porch tunes?
IK: Oh man, it was definitely a challenge. First, I think it was just a matter of really trying to figure out where vocals laid. I think a big part of Dizzy Spell was finally being confident with my voice and figuring out how to use it. I feel like in the past, especially in a live setting, I was very uncomfortable with my voice, but once we got to these songs I was very comfortable and I wanted to call that out in some points and really push myself vocally on this.
SR: We are big fans of Mark Scott and the whole villagerrr crew over here at the hug. He is featured on the song “Placebo”, which is quite a shift in the overall sound and experience of the album. Can you tell me about that song and how that collaboration came to be?
IK: There was a point in time where we still didn’t know how many tracks we wanted on the album. I think I just wanted everyone to weigh in and John [Martino] just ended up expressing that he wanted to potentially write something. A week or two later, he sent me a voice memo and it was just that guitar riff with that main line over it. I was like, ‘okay, this is cool, I also hear Mark on this.’ That was like a week or two after I’d already reached out to Mark just in terms of collaboration, because I wanted one or two other local artists on this. I had shown him a few of the tracks, and he was like, ‘I don’t really know where I’d fit at all on this’, and then John sent me that track and it worked out.
SR: There are a lot of moments where you describe global issues told through your own point of view and observations. Was approaching this writing lens through your own critical life moments a challenge?
IK: That’s a tough one, because I feel like I tried to, in the grand scheme of things, distance myself from my lyrics, and I try to see my lyrics as more of a way for others to interpret it however they want to interpret it. But I think over time, I also look back on my lyrics as more of, not a journal or diary, but kind of just like a placeholder and time of emotional check-ins with myself. A lot of these songs are framed around very specific mindsets and moments that, in passing and reflection, aren’t that heavy, but the heaviness comes from the repeated listens. So I think with time, I’ve grown more attached to some songs, and others I’ve almost outgrown. I think it kind of speaks to the broader idea that you’re speaking to where it just seems like there’s always distance involved. It’s my brain’s simplification of feeling lost in the modern day world and I think we’re all just feeling very disconnected from everything.
Abel
Do you guys have anything coming up that you are excited about?
We’re working on a tour in October which will just be a little 5 day tour with Devils Cross Country out of Cincinnati. We’re playing with Dogs on Shady Lane on August 28 at the Basement. Other than that, we’re playing new songs. We’re writing stuff all the time. I’ll probably release another rat race ∞ type thing with more poppy songs or just stuff we’re not as final about. Definitely lots going on.
Written by Shea Roney | Feature Photo by Dylan Phipps
the ugly hug 