Photo by Kayla Chin
Shortly after the release of their 2017 album, Wæs, usLights got busy on their next project. This new project, however, would be different from their last multi-song release with their transition into more dream-synth indie with vocals as the main instrument. Wanting to forge a new identity in the Massachusetts music scene with guitarist Gregg Kusumah-Atmadja emerging as the band’s official lead singer, the band spent three years crafting their newest EP, Exit Scam, with two new original singles and a familiar Fleetwood Mac cover. UsLights sat down with Allston Pudding to talk about how this new project really marks a change in their evolutionary sound and maturity as a band.
ALLSTON PUDDING: So, firstly I just wanted to congratulate you guys on the new EP. It’s an awesome blend of synth-dream. With the exception of “Dreams,” they were all written over the past couple of years, right?
SHAWN PELKEY: Yeah, they were written like two years ago, and it just took us a very long time to get to where we’re at with them. I mean, we went through a couple of mix engineers, so they had some revisions, and even the record — the vinyl itself — is an earlier set of mixes than the digital release. So there’s like a few things that have changed in there, people might not even notice, for the most part. The car crash [on the cover art] is probably the most noticeable but other than that, like, it just took us the full two years to really do it right, but right now it’s all kind of coming together.
AP: Speaking of the cover art, I thought it was so cool. Is the car crash symbolic of anything?
GREGG KUSUMAH-ATMADJA: Well, Exit Scam coincidentally has this. I talk about driving in a car and I can’t slow down and then there’s a car crash at the end of that phrase. And it just happened to be that we ended up using this artwork with that in mind, so it kind of just happened to work out and it’s kind of a weird coincidence.
AP: Nice. So I want to talk about singles for a second on the EP. “This Must Be The Place” is so rich lyrically. Especially the line “100 times my weight and blood is not enough like.”
GKA: Yeah, so, basically, every time I go to write lyrics I have like this mumble demo track of me just finding melodies. It’s almost like those mumbles are speaking to me, so I try to find what the mumbles sound like I’m saying, and then, once the meaning of the song starts to take shape the phrase falls into place. [This Must Be The Place”] is about parenthood and what it means, and how you can never give [your kids] enough, while also preparing them for the world.
AP: Right on. So, talking about another song off of the EP — The Fleetwood Mac cover — was that just by happy accident that you guys happened to release it just as it started to blow up on Tik Tok? Or was it planned?
GKA: Yeah. we were sitting on that one for a while too, but it was a coincidence! It just happened to line up, but we’re pretty, pretty happy about that.
AP: Yeah sometimes things just work out like that. So looking at your whole discography, what makes this project different from previous ones?
SP: Yeah, this EP is just about us finding ourselves and really honing in on the things that we really want to do with this project like, you know, Wæs was us really searching because we didn’t have a singer when we wrote a lot of those songs, and Greg decided he was just going to sing, so by the time this record came out we had more of an identity in our brains for what we wanted to be. So, you know, it’s really just a piece of the process, you know, we’re still trying to find our place. But it is a step in the evolutionary process and I think it’s a big one.
AP: Greg, how did you decide to be the singer?
GKA: Yeah, so we were putting ourselves out there in the world [to find a singer], you know, saying “We have some demos, if anyone’s interested, send us some stuff,” and we just weren’t really feeling everything that we got back, so I was like, “Fuck it. I’ll just try doing this, and maybe three covers.” And that song was really my first “tryout.”
SP: I was like, “What the hell have you been doing this whole time.” A massive waste of time. I’ve been playing in bands with him for years before that and you know he’s done some quirky little vocal things, but he had never done anything in a serious manner. It was quite a test for him, but it was amazing when he came out with what he did.
MATT NASTRI: Yeah, it really meshes like really well with our sound so like, it was just the perfect sort of situation that just happened to work out. He knew what the songs needed, you know, when you’re looking for other people, they had no clue what we were even expecting or what they would even want to do on it so we were lost for a bit, but it all worked out.
AP: So, Greg. Do you think you’re gonna stay on vocals or was it just a one and done?
GKA: Yeah, I’m a lifer now. I prefer singing them more than anything else, at this point. Takes away a little bit from the guitar work, but I don’t know, I’ve been singing on the guitar anyway. I want to start doing vocals too on the records, which we’re way overdue for.
AP: Speaking of future records — should listeners expect a full-length album coming out soon?
GKA: Yeah, so we basically have a full remixed or reimagined version of our first record Wæs. And that’s also an evolutionary step in a different direction. That’s going to be coming soon, and then we have another three to five song EP, that is along the same lines as the Wæs remix. And then we have another full length that is basically going to take us until the end of next year. So lots of stuff coming up.
AP: Glad to hear it. Thanks so much for talking with me about your latest release!
Exit Scam is available on Spotify and Bandcamp and the 7-Inch record is available for sale here. The music videos for Exit Scam and This Must Be The Place are also out on Instagram and Youtube.