John Lutkevich has got a big heart. The ex-Allstonite packed up his bags and moved to Brooklyn after his old band, Devil and a Penny, disbanded, and is now steering his brand new solo project, Soft Fangs. While music like his would normally be labeled as sad, it seems like it’s worked for the best. His distance, fragile, gloomy self-titled release toys with emotions in the same way Elliott Smith or Sparklehorse do. There’s a beautiful honesty at the forefront and a mangled heart somewhere hidden in between. Where they meet, a comforting style of indie rock rests.

With no one around to make music with, Lutkevich started to make music on his own. “I guess it’s in my system,” he says with a shrug. “The words are made to fit the music… I’m still half writing it as I’m recording it.” On first listen, it’s hard to argue that it sounds frantic or unprepared. With repeat listens, that argument is impossible to win. The songs grow on you quite quickly, and with winter around the corner, they cling a bit tighter for warmth.

Lutkevich sat down with us to talk about how Soft Fangs came to be, how his constant relocating has effected his music, and why, at the end of the day, he really just wants to give his listeners a gift.

Allston Pudding: Your songs are really reminiscent of Elliott Smith and Sparklehorse. Did you grow up listening to them?

Soft Fangs: I didn’t grow up listening to them, but I definitely am a fan. I got into them both in college. I think I grew up listening to, like, I don’t know… a lot of jazz. I do love both those artists, though.

AP: Was that because of your parents?

SF: Yeah, my dad loves jazz. There was a lot of classical music, too. My sister is a classical pianist and so I listened to a lot of that as a kid, totally unwillingly. I appreciate it much more now, but at the time I was like, ‘Ugh, why does she keep playing so much.’

AP: Does she do that for a living?

SF: Yeah, she does. It’s awesome. She went to BU and then NEC. She lives in Franklin right now.

AP: Did you go to school in Boston as well?

SF: I went to UMass Lowell, right outside the city.

AP: So what’s your life post-college like, because you’ve moved quite a bit and it all seems rather scattered.

SF: Yeah! So, I went to school in Lowell for a few years, then I moved to Brighton for two years when I was finishing up school, and then I lived in Allston for two years, and then after Allston I moved to California for a year. That was fun, but I moved back after a year from California to Massachusetts for a month and then I moved to Brooklyn where I now reside.

AP: Were you moving for jobs or a change of scenery?

SF: I didn’t have a job whatsoever. I had 27 jobs in one year in California [laughs]. So, definitely not a job.

AP: Did you move back because of that?

SF: Yeah, there was that, moving back since my sister had a baby, and I missed the seasons and the pacing of an east coast city.

AP: Once you got back, when did you start working a little more seriously on your music?

SF: I kind of wrote a bit in LA, but I wrote most on the road back. They just kind of happened.

AP: Do you place equal emphasis on the music and the lyrics?

SF: Definitely. I just write them at the same time as I’m writing the guitar. With lyrics, it’s a little different than, like, if I sat down to write a poem or a story because I’m pretty much going off of the sounds. I’m mouthing words that fit with the melodies. I’m not saying anything at first; I’m just mouthing syllables [laughs]. Then I turn them into words and develop somewhat of a narrative. I don’t really have anything in mind when I sit down unless I have something that’s itching in my head like a little rifff or a little tune. But I’ll start throwing things around to see what I like.

AP: So where does the name come from?

SF: My friend, actually. She was on tour and I assembled this picture of buttons and these marshmallow things–it looked like a cat basically–and sent her a picture and she was like, ‘Oh, soft fangs!’ and I thought, ‘Hm, I like that.’ That was a while ago. When I was thinking of a name for the project, it jumped back to my brain. It’s cool she came up with it.

AP: What band is she in?

SF: She’s in a band called Dirty Dishes. It’s Jenny Tuite.

AP: Oh! That’s great.

SF: Yeah, she’s the best.

AP: The album was recorded in your parents attic, which seems like it can go two ways: it’s spacious and echoing or it’s cluttered and cozy. What’s it like up there?

SF: Ohhh, there’s lots of stuff [laughs]. Yes, indeed. My family has a lot of stuff. We all love stuff. There’s an abundance of antiques and photo albums and old, busted musical equipment and old, creepy dolls.

AP: Since you come up with most melodies and lyrics while you’re sitting down to record, did the attic space and its contents influence any of that?

SF: Oh yeah, definitely. Being in the attic where I’ve spent a lot of time recording, both now and in high school, rubs off a lot. At the end of “Dog Park”, you can kind of hear dogs barking and keys jingling. That’s actually this dog on the street that I grew up on. It’s this really annoying dog that’s always barking at me, so he’s in there.

AP: Was that intentionally recorded?

SF: Well, I was walking by and I pulled my phone out because I wanted to record this dog barking since I had a title about that. So I just slipped it in there. So, yeah. He really hates me [laughs].

AP: Did you have a hand in the album design? It’s much softer than expected and almost lightens the load a bit.

SF: With that, my roommate drew it. I had him listen to the album for the first time and he drew a bunch of stuff and gave it to me. I was like, ‘Uh, I want you to draw me some birds. Can you draw me some birds?’ So he drew four different kinds and those are the ones I chose from.

AP: So the birds are specific, then?

SF: Yeah. I didn’t want them at first, but after he drew me these random sketches–and I don’t even think there were birds on there–I was like, I need some fragile birds.

AP: Is the line around them supposed to look like a heart? Because it definitely does.

SF: Um…. yeah?!

AP: Does it? It sounds like there was a question mark at the end of that sentence [laughs].

SF: [laughs] I think so. I kind of wanted to make it the way I made the CDs, which was with a stamp cut. I didn’t want it to be just a square. So it was partly design, but I think I wanted it to be a heart… deep down in my heart.

AP: It’s all about expressing your secret love for birds.

SF: That’s it. That’s it! It’s all about the birds. You solved it.

AP: These packages are hand-drawn, too.

SF: Yeah.

AP: Why make the record such a personal release?

SF: I feel like I want to do it with most of the releases, especially if I’m only making 50 or 100 at a time. I can do that. If you’re making 500 at a time, that’s harder. I really love doing that and I feel that doing it with, well, I don’t have any money [laughs] so that’s a factor. But you can make really nice stuff without money. You don’t need money. Especially with this release being a cassette and CD. Right now, it’s really important that the packing for those two things looks nice and personalized because it’s not necessarily about buying the record. There’s some red yarn tieing it up, too.

AP: So nice.

SF: I hope so! I just want it to be nice.

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Soft Fangs plays Great Scott tonight. Tickets are $8.