The Beths, a four piece power-pop band from Aotearoa, sold out two nights at The Sinclair to close out February. At the second show, I was there with other Canterbridgians who were treated to an intimate venue experience from a band that has clearly outgrown it. The crowd was rapturous: eyes were glued to the stage and shoes to the floor, making the perilous path to the stairs for the balcony climb nigh impossible. Lucky for us, there are great sight-lines throughout The Sinclair (for readers in New Zealand, as someone who spent a lot of time in Auckland, this place is exactly like The Powerstation).
A giant inflatable half-fish loomed in the back of the stage, an irreverent conversation piece that slipped its way into the band’s banter. The Beths’ bits included name-the-fish (my favorite crowd suggestion was “Sagittarius” even though “Pisces” would have been more appropriate), introducing the band (cringe) with an interesting fact (oh wait I take it back, that’s fun). This led to bass player Benjamin Sinclair introducing his Beths’ blog where I learned he was impressed with the food (Felipe’s and Cardullo’s) and unimpressed with some locals being rude. Welcome. To. Boston.
The show began with the band walking out to a child-like keyboard instrumental version of “Future Me Hates Me” playing on the PA before they launched into the song for real. It was the vocal harmonies for me though, which were lovely every single time, including on songs “Expert In A Dying Field” and “Head In The Clouds.” I’ve been singing the refrain from “Expert” in my head for the past two days. The Beths are masters of their craft.
One critique is that I could personally do with about 40 – 65% less guitar solos. For example, on “I’m Not Getting Excited,” the recording has two bars of one note guitar solo vamping before the chorus hits. The live version adds a long, busy guitar diversion before the chorus.
There’s a ton of depth in the set: from the faster pop-punk (“Silence is Golden”, and “I Told You I Was Afraid”) to the mid-tempo palm muter (“Jump Rope Gazers”). “Don’t Go Away” was an ambitious moment that shined a spotlight on The Beths’ wide ranging capabilities. “Don’t” dazzled us with volume and tempo changes on the break-down and rave-up.
The Beths ask “how does it feel?” and I’d have to say, leaving the show, I felt energized and lucky. There was a false-alarm blizzard warning the night before so I was dreading a cancellation. They mused onstage that it’s weird that they always come to Boston in the winter. Here’s hoping for warmer temps to go with the warm melodies next time around.
Last Friday, a watershed moment in the Boston indie-emo rock community transpired when a split EP was dropped from enthusiasts of idiosyncratic grammatical artistic liberties: Gollylagging, going222jail, and Dino Gala. The record release show was in Somerville, in honor of the three band split EP record fauna – and we were here for it.
All bands gave shoutouts to the talent buyer, a perfect 3-for-3, which has got to go in the talent buyer Hall of Fame. Understandable. Buyer Alex Pickert invited them to play Crystal Ballroom – a gorgeous sounding, fresh faced, paaaacked 500 capacity venue that just gets better everytime I go in. This time I noticed upgraded lights, new background visuals, and cheaper drinks.
After a spirited performance from openers Addie, the night kicked off with Gollylagging – a post-hardcore trio who was in full force and full roar. After asking the audience if they’d seen the new movie “Cocaine Bear” (I would be remiss to not point out here that the concert is taking place directly above a movie theater), they launched into beast mode on fauna opener “frog.” I have written here in my notes “mosh pit, not-so-gentle,” and yes that happened for most of the set. The band turned away from the audience and inward toward themselves to connect better with the music and deal the audio goods, which was a move I hadn’t seen pulled off with this much poise since I saw Death Cab do it in their early days.
going22jail was the next act of (as they described) very Italian bands of the evening. jail actually used to be called “Italian Ice” when they played as a trio, and when bass player Matti Lepkowski joined the band the name changed. going222jail, pronounced “going to jail,” play a DSU influenced brand of chorus drenched rock that sounds spectacular from their Roland Jazz guitar amps. Affable singer Jools Skiffington was positively loquacious as per usual, entertaining the crowd with off-beat banter in between numbers. It was like he was standing next to you at the show and chatting at the same time as providing musical entertainment. He joked that the crowd was so large, he wouldn’t even be mad if someone left. Skiffington bopped around the stage, leaning his head into bandmates, as they played tracks from their EP Ragweed and of course fauna. They also uncovered a nice cover of “Maps.”
Lastly was Dino Gala, and they kicked things off with “Take It Back.” Where jail are suppliers of chorus-y tones, Gala deals in phase pedals from atop a skateboard mount. The emo pop-punk was solid and the audience’s excitement was through the (chandeliered) roof. The enthusiasm was evident in the free merch shirt they gave out onstage, the crowd singing along, and the competitive setlist requests by fans after the set. Gala felt very polished and grounded, and they called back Gollylagging’s singer James to the stage for closer “British,” which tied the evening together nicely. After the last note was struck the band embraced on stage, the revelers reluctantly left the building, drifting out into the 19° evening.
On Friday, February 17, the eclectic pop singer/songwriter Kimbra made a long-awaited return to Boston at Big Night Live. The evening was a deeply personal exploration of her latest album, A Reckoning.
The show began with a strong opening performance by Tei Shi, who joked about her relief that she was performing to an audience of more than 12 people. Self-deprecation aside, Tei Shi successfully warmed up the growing crowd and presented some of her new music along the way.
Kimbra stepped up next to deliver a potent performance of A Reckoning in full, with a few throwbacks to popular earlier works. She punctuated the night’s music with several monologues, inviting her audience into her vulnerability and thoroughly elaborating the emotional context of her songs. Kimbra’s thoughtful, multi-layered approach to her music also manifested quite literally, as she performed the song “Settle Down” from her debut album Vows over looping tracks that she created live on stage. Ultimately, the evening was an open connection between Kimbra and her audience, and her powerhouse performance was a perfect conduit for it.
Gollylagging/Going222Jail/Dino Gala Fauna EP cover art
There must be something in the water right now, or at least the Gansett. You see, we’re in the midst of a very fertile time in Allston DIY, yet another indie rock renaissance. The ebb and flow of transient college kids, tape enthusiasts, and arty young professionals has hit a fulcrum, and the sheer number of killer bands and plugged in heads supporting them that haunt the constellation of basements, bars, and small venues of our precious and vibrant scene feels consequential. Those who venture out into the night, chasing down addresses from Instagram DMs and word of mouth buzz, (or we might add, voracious readers of this very publication) have seen this bubbling up for some time, the hype swelling towards some sort of event horizon. And here it is: three of Young Allston’s hottest bands, (that being Gollylagging, Going222Jail, and Dino Gala, respectively) have joined forces with producer Justin Termotto to issue a three-way split EP entitled Fauna. Following a string of beloved EPs and loosies from all three groups and a whole bunch of shared bills, it feels about high time for their little in-scene to have its big coming out moment. It makes it that much sweeter that these are some of their best songs yet. And so we here at Allston Pudding are stoked to be sharing them with you a day early at the link below.
Like any split release worth its salt, each group here understands its place within their ecosystem and acts accordingly. Emo is the jumping off point sure, but Gollylagging, Going222Jail, and Dino Gala all approach that three letter word with their own spirited take. Gollylagging play to their more aggro strengths, delivering Fauna‘s heaviest moments and chuggiest riffs, but carefully and tunefully with plenty of hooks and the sense to slash around in short controlled bursts. Going222Jail hue a bit closer to indie rock than their more emotionally combustible compatriots, and their contributions reflect that: faint touches of alt country twang and trebly college rock dot the DNA of these songs, but these tools are applied in ways that make them fully congruent with the surroundings. Dino Gala wrap things up with a continued refinement of their impossibly hooky brand of pop-y punk: the quartet’s near-telepathic guitar interplay and sighing vocal harmonies remain among the city’s finest.
Gollylagging, Going222Jail, and Dino Gala play their biggest show yet tomorrow at Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom on Fauna‘s release night, and it’s hard not to see the gig as a kicking off of each group’s second phase. Be there to witness something great.
The Fauna EP is out everywhere Friday, February 25th. Tickets are still available to the split release show.
Last Saturday night, indie-folk singer/songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov and his band came to Boston and were greeted by a sold-out crowd at Roadrunner. With no openers and an upcoming album still in progress, the evening was a distillation of Isakov’s current body of work. The audience was treated to a setlist that featured a balanced mix of songs from his three most recent studio albums and a small sampling of everything else, all vibrantly performed by Isakov and his band. With a minimalistic stage production, the emphasis was on Isakov and friends. The concert ended with two separate encores that saw each band member crowded around a single microphone, and he stripped-down performances of “Dandelion Wine,” “Saint Valentine,” and “All Shades of Blue” made a room filled with thousands feel intimate. Fortunately for those who missed out on last weekend’s concert, Isakov noted that it won’t be long before he returns with a new album.
Indie pop five-piece Winkler are something like an Allston supergroup. Boasting members from AP faves Sweet Petunia and Dino Gala, the group boast a sound that certainly differs from their those other projects, but retains a similar tunefulness and emotional force. Aided by a rep for ecstatic live shows and a string of well-received singles, the band has caused quite a stir in the tight-knit basement scene since their inception in 2020. With a warm, (some might even say folksy) approach, Winkler makes music that hues a bit closer to classic AM pop music than some of their contemporaries, and with such a rich background, they definitely have the chops to back it up. The band also toys with a clever experimental streak on the back end. In fact, a deep love of home analog recording, and a comparatively brash use of more robust instrumentation have helped Winkler stake a claim for one of Boston’s most promising young bands, and their debut album For You, Now distills these influences into their strongest statement yet as a unit. Pulling from classic folk and rock of the psychedelic and the conventional variety, Winkler has made something like a Dave Fridmann-style orchestral rock opus in miniature, and we can’t wait to see what happens next.
We had the chance to chat with the band’s own Justin Schaefers ahead of For You, Now’s release, so hit play and read on below.
Allston Pudding: When and how did Winkler form?
Winkler: Winkler formed here in the magical city of Boston, Massachusetts. Christian and I first got together because I had heard that he was skilled with a four-track cassette recorder. He very graciously agreed to help record some of my songs on the four-track, and after booking a rehearsal space at our school, that’s exactly what we did. After a few hours of playing we began messing with some new ideas, one of which became our first single, as well as the origin of the band’s name. Winkler has gone through a few lineup changes since our formation, but the current lineup is made up of the best friends and musicians anyone could ask for.
AP: It’s clear you’ve carved a particular path within the Allston rock scene, how did you arrive at this sound?
W: We are all very grateful for the music scene here in Allston. It has been such a home to us and the other bands, and the community’s love for music has been a huge influence on us. I think that this energy has really charged our live shows with a vibe that I love. The studio can be a very different environment and while we love to rock out, we felt that with this record, we could attempt some sounds that we wouldn’t typically go for in a live set. Two guitars, percussion, bass, and drums are a perfect vessel for us in a performance environment, but we felt like if we had the time and the space, we could paint a more clear and even picture of who we are musically.
AP: What did some of your earlier music endeavors look like comparatively?
W: We have all been musicians for years, Most of us are currently in other bands as well. For myself I can say that I have been in two other bands before Winkler, both out of Northern California, for which I am extremely grateful. Our bassist Ava and I grew up in the same town in California, and even played in some of the same bands growing up. She moved to Boston a year or two after I did, but I was always hoping that we would be playing together here on the east coast and here we are now!
Maddy is also in Sweet Petunia, a wonderful group with some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. They are a band that I have seen more times than I can count and have still taken my breath away with each performance. We are very lucky to have even a drop of that skill in Winkler.
Alex and Christian are also in the band Dino Gala, who if you haven’t listened to already, then what have you been doing? With some of the most passionate live performances and amazing playing and singing in all of Boston, we feel so lucky to have Alex as the guitar player for Winkler.
AP: There’s obviously a lot of moving parts within your music, how does a Winkler song come together?
W: It’s a crazy mess most of the time. Each song on this album came together in a different way. We tried our very best to start each song with a solid live take as the foundation. This is how we tracked most of the songs, however, there are a few exceptions. “Sarah and and the Moon” started with a piano track that I did to tape in California, and then we proceeded to build up everything from that one track. This proved to be very difficult but I had heard that “Penny Lane” began the same way so we held on to that faith during the recording process. The second track on the album, “Nothing But Time” began with a minimal demo to a metronome that we then sent to our friend Kely who added the beautiful cello to the track. We then proceeded to re-record the song around the cello tracks to make it as cohesive of a song as possible. The final exception would be the instrumental track “Drunk Surfers” which I recorded all on one four track alone in my room right after the first lock down. I remember sending it to Christian and was thrilled when he suggested we include it on the album.
AP: What were you listening to and reading or watching while piecing together For You, Now? How do you feel as though those influences are distilled into the album?
W: We have been working on these songs and recording for so long that the list of influences could go on for a while! The first batch of these really came together while we were on a big Neil Young kick. After the Gold Rush really had a big influence on us. Other influences would include Devendra Banhart (who we all adore), as well as artists like Jonathan Richman, Cate le Bon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Phoebe Lou, among many others.
AP: The production on For You, Now has an interesting mix of fidelities: homespun for sure, but also very warm and dynamic. How did you manage to achieve all that depth while recording at (various) homes around the city?
W: We experimented a lot while recording with different levels of sound quality to help us get what we were going for on any given song. We have a decent selection of mostly working tape machines that all have different sonic qualities that we would use for different things. For example, we have a tiny blue four-track that makes guitars sound all fantastic, rich, and warbly. I love this machine because it makes my guitar sound like some of my favorite records. We recorded almost all of the tracks in our old house on the corner of Linden and Pratt in Allston and we think the space also had a great effect on the sound of the record. We were able to manipulate the limitations of the four-track with the help of the computer when we needed, but for as much of the album as we could, we tried to keep everything on the four-track which creates lots of decisions early on that you can’t change afterwards. This meant a lot of apologizing to our mixing engineer Alex Judd for having things like drums, bass, and piano all on one track!
AP: Speaking of which, the city seems to play a role in several of these tracks, why do you think that setting plays such a role in the album?
W: The City is just the setting for the record, most of the songs were written in tiny dorm rooms or apartments and I suppose the influence of the city just found its way in. If you walk through the Common in May it’s hard not to feel like writing a song about it.
AP: Is the dichotomy between the typically “rural” stylings of folk music and the urban references you work into the music a conscious thing or just a natural outgrowth of yourselves as musicians?
W: It was never a conscious thing. These songs are just songs we had and knew we wanted to put on an album, we never thought, “oh hey I think this is a folk rock album” it was always more that we knew what we wanted this batch of songs to sound like and we felt like we owed it to ourselves as well as anyone who listened to us to get the songs as close to the goal as possible.
AP: How does the city of Boston and the music scene within inspire you all as musicians/people?
W: Boston has shown us so much wonderful music and introduced us to some of our favorite bands in the world. Most importantly, Boston has been a home and a place where all of us could find each other and create something we feel proud of. Seeing the DIY scene here is so inspiring as well. without it we probably wouldn’t exist. With so few venues available to us starting out as a new band, House shows and the kindness of the scene here has made all the difference in the world.
AP: For our readers who haven’t seen y’all live yet, how would you describe a Winkler set?
W: Big and Bold. in my mind there’s no point in putting on a show if you’re not trying to give something away or share something with other people. That being said, we hope to always be experimenting with our live shows and keep people on their toes so maybe I shouldn’t say much more than that.
AP: Beyond the release show at The Lilypad, what’s next in Winkler land?
W: Immediately after the show tomorrow we are playing three more shows on the east coast as part of a mini release tour as well as another small tour in April. We have already begun working on some new songs in the studio and feel very excited about what we’re getting, so we can’t wait to keep sharing with anyone who is willing to listen.
For You, Now is out now, you can grab a download right here. Tonight’s record release show at The Lilypad is already sold out, sorry!
Last week, we were treated to a beautiful performance courtesy of Toronto’s MorMor, with support from Arima Ederra. While the room wasn’t packed to the brim, those who did brave the cold (and light snow) that evening were floored by MorMor’s powerful delivery and stalwart stage presence, evident even under the Sinclair’s minimal, opaque lighting which proved to set the perfect mood for the night.
Somerville’s La Brasa has recently become one of the latest restaurants to start hosting regular musical performances. Dinner, a few drinks, and a show? Yes please!
In conjunction with sickjoke.co and ONCE – which, thankfully, is still going strong despite being one of 2020’s many tragic venue casualties – the restaurant has been putting on free shows for the past few months. On Thursday 1/26, they’re keeping it going by bringing New York’s Bellows to town, with support from Pink Navel (Dev has been keeping busy themselves by hosting the monthly Knobs night at State Park in Kendall). Since the show is free, you can save that money and order off of La Brasa’s acclaimed menu (which includes elote, so this writer is gonna get stuffed on some street corn, I can tell you that much).
Screen Grab – Courtesy of Divine Sweater – From Left: Meghan Kelleher & Chris Southiere
The happiest band in Boston is back with another buoyant bop to lift us out of the cold. Divine Sweater premiered their latest single off of a forthcoming album this week. “All The Way Back” deals with thoughts of the past before finally resolving to look ahead. With a groovy baseline and Meghan Kelleher’s dreamy vocal, Divine Sweater continues to give listeners exactly what they are looking for. Before their show at O’Brien’s Pub on the 28th, I got to catch up with the band and discuss double mustaches, having top energy and being the best Steve…
AP: What’s in the suitcase? Ultimately it seems like there’s nothing, but at one point there was something…
Chris Southiere: Actually in the suitcase are all the friends we made along the way.
AP: Ohh. Wholesome!
Meghan Kelleher: Yeah. That was kinda the idea. That we’re all trying to protect or capture this thing that seems really great. Like at the beginning it’s glowing, but at the end we realize there’s nothing there. Sort of depressing for a song that’s supposed to be happy and uplifting.
Sean Seaver: Thematically I feel like the briefcase is a good metaphor for the lyrics, which is this narrator boasting about obtaining something, but at the end you’re still looking up, aspirationally.
Stephen Lin: Now that makes a lot more sense.
Alex Goldberg: So I was acting off of wildly incomplete information. I was promised money, tickets to the Celtics game. I mean there’s a reason I’m going after the suitcase and I wanted it so badly.
CS: Alex was not acting at any point. We just didn’t tell him. [laughs]
AG: That’s true. And to see that there was nothing there. That was a real shock for me.
AP: Just bamboozled.
MK: Yeah, and the album that we’re putting out is an interesting narrative that starts really high and gets really low at the end. Things are really really bad at the end of the album so this was kind of foreshadowing that. Because that song is supposed to be super hopeful. Like, someone just quit their job, someone just moved or made these really big choices that are really exciting and in those moments where you make a big change you feel like this high. But not everything is solved right then.
Courtesy of Divine Sweater via Facebook – From Left: Meghan Kelleher & Chris Southiere
AP: Can you explain the inspiration behind the tone of the video? It has this sort of cheesy 70s/80s porno vibe. I watched it really late one night and just wrote down “Meg has top energy” so…
MK: Print that. Print that.
AG: You should actually consider leading with that for marketing purposes. [all laugh]
CS: I really wish I had my mustache in this video now.
MK: We were definitely leaning into a Pulp Fiction energy.
SL: We all have sex. That’s the subtext. Everybody’s having sex.
MK: I liked that we have characters in [this video]. A lot of times in our music videos it’s just us vibing to our music, but we have pretty set characters and Mark Allison, who works with us on our videos, is just so creative so we kind of had this idea that he really helped flesh out. Really really fun.
AP: Did you guys come up with your own personas?
SS: The personas kind of happened as the day went on. We knew that Alex, Steve and I would be against Meg and Chris. But I don’t know how Steve being the boss of Alex and I materialized. [laughs] Or where he got that wig…
CS: We continually doubled down on the story as it went along. It was going to be pretty tame but then wigs got involved. Once the first wig comes out, you never know…
MK: My personal favorite moment is when Alex has a mustache over his mustache and then rips it off.
AG: I actually grew that out for the video, I spent a long time on it. It hurt a lot.
AP: Clean pull though.
SS: I also loved the scene when Meg and Chris get into a car crash and in the next shot, the hood is popped and [Alex] just pops out of the ether…
AG: Well you know, I was an actor in high school and I always had that going for me. I feel like in general I’m the best music video performer and have been for some time now.
MK: 100%
SL: You should know that Meg and Chris almost died in the video actually. They got stuck in the elevator.
MK: That actually did happen.
CS: That was terrifying. We were blocking off the elevator for like 15 minutes and were like alright, we gotta let this thing go. It went down to the basement and it just didn’t open. Meg is normally quick to be a little concerned, perhaps anxious. I’m like, “c’mon Meg, we don’t have to press the emergency button.” After a minute I’m like, “actually we might have to…”
AP: With the lyric, “I’m getting taller, it’s a mystery. I’m getting younger…”, is this song secretly about Benjamin Button-ing?
MK: Metaphorically… yes. I think that, speaking for myself, I definitely feel younger now. Given my life situations and the way I choose to live my life and feel about myself. Like, I feel much younger now than I felt five years ago. Even though the numbers would say otherwise.
AG: Well I have been working on a really nice skin care routine so I actually very literally appear to look younger than I did five years ago. Most people can testify to that.
CS: I actually thought “All The Way Back” was a metaphor for my hairline… [all laugh]
AP: I feel ya on that one. And Alex, if you can send me a link to the skin care routine videos, I can definitely embed that within the piece as well.
AG: For sure. (Unfortunately, these videos do not actually exist)
“All The Way Back” Single Artwork
AP: If you could go back to any time in the past, would you?
MK: I can speak first. I would absolutely not go back. I’m anti-that idea. I would be sadder if I went back. I’m in a good place right now.
SS: If I had all my current knowledge, I would go back as early as I can go. I would make so much money.
AG: I think I would go back to January 8th, 2007 – specifically. That way I could throw all of the money and possessions I have into Apple stock.
CS: Why stop there? Go back to the beginning of Apple. To the garage.
AG: He didn’t have any money then.
SL: I think I’m the best Steve. In the multiverse of Steves, I don’t think I could have done anything better really. I regret nothing, I repent nothing. That’s all there is to it.
CS: In another universe I would’ve loved just sitting around and doing laundry with Steve.
AP: And taxes.
CS: I don’t know if I would go back, I really learned a lot from my many mistakes. But I am looking forward to learning from my many mistakes to come and I apologize for how they will affect each one of you individually.
AP: Will there be sequels to this music video? Will Sean finally be able to use his nunchucks? Or just keep falling over?
SS: I knew how to use them for like… it was weird, for 45 seconds I was a nunchuck and then after that time and the cameras started rolling, I had no idea.
MK: I will say the next music video we’re putting out is equal cheesiness. Potentially more. More cheese.
SL: And you heard it here first, we’re gonna do a heist music video.
AG: [groans] Here we go again…
MK: That’s been in the works for our entire time as a band.
AG: I think Steve proposed a heist music video like six years before this band was even assembled.
Check out the new video for single “All The Way Back” below and follow Divine Sweater on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more!
Perennial have made a name for themselves as one of the most electrifying bands out of New England. Their last album In The Midnight Hour won them fans and acclaim, including a spot on Allston Pudding’s Best of 2022 list, and their raucous stage presence cemented them as a group that needed to be seen, not just heard. As the band gears up for their show at Cambridge venue The Democracy Center, singer and guitarist Chad Jewett dishes on the band’s new album and the trio’s plans for performing in 2023.
Are you futurists or revisionists?
This is a great question. I would say that our goal, both on record and in the live setting, is to make something engaging and new. Live we want to be the band that’s a 20 minute burst of energy that no one saw coming. On record we’re always trying to play with what a “punk” song is, or what a “post-hardcore” song is. Sometimes that means drawing on stuff from the past that we love, but with the goal of making something exciting and unexpected. That was a lot of the focus of In The Midnight Hour: making a punk album that also brings in ambient music and post-bop jazz and electronic music and 60s soul. A loud distorted guitar is a lot more interesting when it’s followed up with vibraphone or drum machine or Hammond organ. The focus is on energy: what can make those 20 minutes next to your stereo as exciting as possible.
What did you learn from making your first album that you brought into making your second, and what did you learn from your second that you’re bringing into your third?
On our first record we were still figuring out the shape of what Perennial is, the way we’d approach the blank canvas of a song. With our second LP, In The Midnight Hour, we wanted all the sounds we love to work together within songs, so that a track might start off sounding like Fugazi, but by the time you get to the bridge there’s been a verse with programmed drums and cowbell and synth and a free jazz instrumental break, while also making sure that all those pieces would work together and make sense. We wanted each new move to be exciting, but also to work well as pop songs.
For the record we’re working on now, it’s really just sharpening that same approach, while playing with the studio as its own instrument even more. We’re making sure we’re never satisfied to just lean on guitars and drums; we’re spending lots of time looking for what might be a more interesting sonic experience for the listener. So for instance, we have moments on the new album that musically are more based on how say the organ and drums work together, a sort of Stax thing, but the vocals over that might be something we’d normally sing over a much louder, more distorted section. We’re bringing in electric piano and fuzz bass and wah wah pedals and more tambourines and drum machine. This new record is a headphone album you can dance to.
Perennial in the studio. Photos courtesy of Perennial
Any surprises on the new record?
The nice thing about playing as much live as we did this year (around 60 shows since the release of In The Midnight Hour) is you quickly figure out what you love most about the album you’re performing every week. So we found that the songs we gravitated towards were the ones with big dynamic moves, with lots of hooks, with stuff that we can move to live. So LP3 so far really feels like its centered on those ideas. Sonically, we were listening to a ton of early garage rock, Motown, mod bands like The Jam and Small Faces. All of these sounds were already central to Perennial, but I think that punchy, energetic thing that all those aesthetics have in common are very present for LP3. We’re also taking even more time with what the studio makes possible in terms of a sort of Technicolor listening experience. We get bored very easily with a two-minute punk song that’s all guitars and drums. So we rather quickly got the skeleton of each song recorded and then got down to the fun of figuring out how to make each of those 10 or 12 songs really interesting and surprising, and worth listening to again and again as active headphone experiences; that’s a huge part of LP3.
What role does volume play in your sound?
I think in a lot of ways it defines our sound: we’ve always been absolutely enamored with the effect of quiet/loud dynamics: making a moment as quiet as it can be, then following it up immediately with something as loud as we can make it. Both on record and in our live sets. There’s a very real sonic affect to that dynamic flexibility that is so thrilling to us. Again, it’s all about finding energy, making something kinetic and memorable. That feeling when you see a band live, and they’re loud enough that you can feel the air moving? That’s really important to us. That said, please wear earplugs.
Perennial exists to play live. We absolutely love making records, and we do so with painstaking care, but honestly what makes us special is what we do on stage for 20 minutes. Chelsey and I have this ethos that the goal is to never ever stop moving. Any given second of our show should be exciting to watch. If we catch ourselves standing still it means we need to be even more in motion and even more dramatic to make up for it. We want to reward people for watching us play: the records are a wonderful way to hear the work we do sonically. The live show is where you’ll see why we’re so devoted to Perennial as a concept.
We have a quick East Coast mini-tour coming up in late February, and hopefully some longer trips in the summer and autumn! We’re pretty much always within a couple weeks of a show in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, or New Jersey.
How did you decide to wear a uniform when you perform and how did you land on the striped shirt?
That goes back to the live show as the raison dêtre for Perennial. We love the idea of someone having never heard of us seeing the band set up and there’s this wall of guitar amps and an electric organ instead of a bass and all three members are matching: “What is this going to be?”. It’s also exciting for us: you look around and your whole band is matching and about to be so unbelievably loud. It puts a smile on my face very time. Plus so many of the bands we love matched: The Beatles matched, The Temptations matched, The Supremes matched, The Creation matched.
As for the striped shirts, it’s immediately recognizable. You can be at the very end of a big long room and see that we’re matching. Plus it makes shopping easy. Every year companies put out their summer lines and there’s inevitably a new batch of striped t-shirts for Perennial.
