| Cerulean Giallo Session | |
| Violitionist Sessions |
Session Date: May 31, 2012
Posting Date: September 3, 2012
Artist Hometown: Denton, TX
Links: n/a
Recorded by: Michael Briggs
3 QUESTIONS
ONE: Is there a reason why you don’t have any Internet presence?
Justin Talley: Laziness.
Brandon Young: Sleeping in late and going to bed late. Nah, I mean, we’re both…It’s hard to explain, really.
Justin: [Laughing] It’s a touchy subject. Actually, yeah, I don’t really have an Internet presence that much, with this or personally. I think it’s probably going to be one of our shortcomings in the long run, but I’m just not very…I don’t know. I honestly, for my part, feel like it’s a timidness because, I don’t know, who are we to—
Brandon: You don’t want to just shove it in people’s faces.
Justin: Yeah, who are we to be like, ‘Come listen to us play!’
Brandon: ‘We’re this, we have these recordings, come check us out! We’re fully recognized and realized as a regular band!’
Justin: It’s funny, because— I feel bad for you, because you’re going to have to transcribe all of this later. Just me rambling. Feel free to cut out whatever you want. But, I’ve always been so curious because the way that modern music and bands go is very Internet-based, booking shows and booking tours, and for some reason the band Dead Kennedys always comes to mind. Like, how did they get around? There wasn’t Internet, it was just through letters in the mail and phones and stuff, before even cell phones were around, and so I think— and I grew up with that, with flyers being posted, and, you know, if you heard about a show, it was either word of mouth from a friend, or it was a flyer that you saw going to it, and it may be just this dying relic kind of romanticizing of that kind of aspect of the scene, or the music climate, but…yeah, I like that way more than just posting a Facebook post of, like, ‘Come to this!!’ You always have like 200 people saying ‘Yeah, I’ll come to it!’ or whatever, and then you get ten, fifteen people showing up to the shows or whatever. So, I don’t know, I think, with the Internet, it almost is a little bit too easy—
Brandon: Cheap.
Justin: I would say cheap, yeah. There’s almost more, if you’re posting up flyers, like the last show we had at our house—
Brandon: That worked out really well.
Justin: We posted flyers like the day of…I think it was just the day of.
Brandon: It was the day of. Yeah, Friday morning.
Justin: He posted them all over town, and then these kids just showed up randomly, all at our house, like, ‘I’ve never seen the shows before, but yeah, we came to see the music. We came to see your free show, blah blah blah.’ That was more…that seemed more…
Brandon: Personal. Physical.
Justin: And genuine, I guess, than just kind of blasé Facebook…
Brandon: ‘Click!’
Justin: Yeah, exactly.
DJ: You realize this is going to be posted online, right?
Brandon: Turn it off! This interview is over!!
Justin: [Laughing] Yeah, you’re right. That’s kind of the struggle that I find us being in. Like, we talked about creating a Facebook page just for our—
Brandon: We’re going to. We will have one, eventually.
Justin: OK.
DJ: This is the big announcement.
Justin: Yeah! This is the debut!!
Brandon: No, we decided we’re going to have one, it’s just the actual execution of it. And I tried to make that Congress page. We tried to make a page for our house, but I couldn’t even get the best inner workings to work out to where it’s its own page. It’s just some part of my Facebook…I don’t know, it’s really weird.
Justin: It’s just…it’s not something that we can fight, really, but I’m really reluctant to use that. But, I mean, it is a tool and it is the…the age that we’re living in. That might sound cliché…
Brandon: The next step.
Justin: It feels different in some ways with the self-promotion. I have a really big problem with schmoozing and self-promotion, but people like Gutterth and the Violitionist Sessions or whatever, I definitely feel like they…it feels so selfless, the stuff that they’re doing. They do it for the love of the music scene, the stuff that’s going on in the music scene. They really enjoy it, which is like, I’m really flattered that they even consider us to be a part of their live shows, or this Violitionist Session, but…so, I’m comfortable with that. It’s more, I think, that I dislike the self-promotion thing I guess. We’re usually the kind to list ourselves last on the flyer. Put ourselves at the bottom…
Brandon: List ourselves last, play first.
Justin: Yeah, that kind of thing, because it’s just, I don’t know, it makes me feel…it makes us, I don’t know, feel awkward or uncomfortable in some ways with it, I guess.
Brandon Young: Sleeping in late and going to bed late. Nah, I mean, we’re both…It’s hard to explain, really.
Justin: [Laughing] It’s a touchy subject. Actually, yeah, I don’t really have an Internet presence that much, with this or personally. I think it’s probably going to be one of our shortcomings in the long run, but I’m just not very…I don’t know. I honestly, for my part, feel like it’s a timidness because, I don’t know, who are we to—
Brandon: You don’t want to just shove it in people’s faces.
Justin: Yeah, who are we to be like, ‘Come listen to us play!’
Brandon: ‘We’re this, we have these recordings, come check us out! We’re fully recognized and realized as a regular band!’
Justin: It’s funny, because— I feel bad for you, because you’re going to have to transcribe all of this later. Just me rambling. Feel free to cut out whatever you want. But, I’ve always been so curious because the way that modern music and bands go is very Internet-based, booking shows and booking tours, and for some reason the band Dead Kennedys always comes to mind. Like, how did they get around? There wasn’t Internet, it was just through letters in the mail and phones and stuff, before even cell phones were around, and so I think— and I grew up with that, with flyers being posted, and, you know, if you heard about a show, it was either word of mouth from a friend, or it was a flyer that you saw going to it, and it may be just this dying relic kind of romanticizing of that kind of aspect of the scene, or the music climate, but…yeah, I like that way more than just posting a Facebook post of, like, ‘Come to this!!’ You always have like 200 people saying ‘Yeah, I’ll come to it!’ or whatever, and then you get ten, fifteen people showing up to the shows or whatever. So, I don’t know, I think, with the Internet, it almost is a little bit too easy—
Brandon: Cheap.
Justin: I would say cheap, yeah. There’s almost more, if you’re posting up flyers, like the last show we had at our house—
Brandon: That worked out really well.
Justin: We posted flyers like the day of…I think it was just the day of.
Brandon: It was the day of. Yeah, Friday morning.
Justin: He posted them all over town, and then these kids just showed up randomly, all at our house, like, ‘I’ve never seen the shows before, but yeah, we came to see the music. We came to see your free show, blah blah blah.’ That was more…that seemed more…
Brandon: Personal. Physical.
Justin: And genuine, I guess, than just kind of blasé Facebook…
Brandon: ‘Click!’
Justin: Yeah, exactly.
DJ: You realize this is going to be posted online, right?
Brandon: Turn it off! This interview is over!!
Justin: [Laughing] Yeah, you’re right. That’s kind of the struggle that I find us being in. Like, we talked about creating a Facebook page just for our—
Brandon: We’re going to. We will have one, eventually.
Justin: OK.
DJ: This is the big announcement.
Justin: Yeah! This is the debut!!
Brandon: No, we decided we’re going to have one, it’s just the actual execution of it. And I tried to make that Congress page. We tried to make a page for our house, but I couldn’t even get the best inner workings to work out to where it’s its own page. It’s just some part of my Facebook…I don’t know, it’s really weird.
Justin: It’s just…it’s not something that we can fight, really, but I’m really reluctant to use that. But, I mean, it is a tool and it is the…the age that we’re living in. That might sound cliché…
Brandon: The next step.
Justin: It feels different in some ways with the self-promotion. I have a really big problem with schmoozing and self-promotion, but people like Gutterth and the Violitionist Sessions or whatever, I definitely feel like they…it feels so selfless, the stuff that they’re doing. They do it for the love of the music scene, the stuff that’s going on in the music scene. They really enjoy it, which is like, I’m really flattered that they even consider us to be a part of their live shows, or this Violitionist Session, but…so, I’m comfortable with that. It’s more, I think, that I dislike the self-promotion thing I guess. We’re usually the kind to list ourselves last on the flyer. Put ourselves at the bottom…
Brandon: List ourselves last, play first.
Justin: Yeah, that kind of thing, because it’s just, I don’t know, it makes me feel…it makes us, I don’t know, feel awkward or uncomfortable in some ways with it, I guess.
TWO: How did you create your sound, and how would you define it?
Justin: Post-prog. [Laughs]
Brandon: Post-post-prog!
Justin: Yeah! I don’t know. We both really like progressive rock bands from the 1970’s, and whatnot, and…with this project, we had almost no limitations. Like, Brandon comes from more of like a jazz drumming background. Not exclusively, but that’s what he likes to play. I came from punk and into prog and stuff, and when we started playing together, it was just like…we didn’t want to create a certain type of band or whatever. We just wanted to mix all of our influences, especially, I think, playing in the black metal band Depths, or whatever, that we were playing with, I think that that definitely has seeped in a lot.
Brandon: Yeah.
Justin: Just being involved in that and surrounded by that, so, it’s just like…no limitations. Usually when we play a show, it’s kind of like, to keep it simple, ‘psychedelic prog,’ kind of space-ier elements, but…
Brandon: It’s been really comfortable playing together, too, because we haven’t forced ourselves to write anything specific, or try to be like, ‘OK, well, I want this to sound like this.’ We just play, and whatever we play or we jam, it just manifests itself into a song idea or something like that.
Justin: It’s a lot of, I think, working together where no songs are really fully written. Like, we’ll just come up with a riff, and then it’s very open to dissection and just like…if he feels like my bass should be doing something, or…we can throw suggestions out at each other without it being too domineering over each other’s voice.
DJ: There’s a guitar string on your bass…
Justin: Yes, there is.
DJ: What’s going on there?
Brandon: Overcompensating!!
Justin: No, I’ve always liked more trebly, melodic bass stuff. I rarely use the low E string on my bass, and I felt like…I don’t know what even inspired me to just take that off and put a guitar string on. Just my lack of using it. It’s tuned to a drop D, so I can…I don’t know if it’s an octave or harmonized. I guess an octave, playing octaves with the D string, and so from that, with us keeping it a two piece and not having another guitarist or whatever, or a guitar, it kind of fills that sound, where it’s not just all bass and kind of muddly or whatever. It can get that rich, high-end tone, and I think that complements our sound, or pushes it further into a different direction. I don’t know.
Brandon: Post-post-prog!
Justin: Yeah! I don’t know. We both really like progressive rock bands from the 1970’s, and whatnot, and…with this project, we had almost no limitations. Like, Brandon comes from more of like a jazz drumming background. Not exclusively, but that’s what he likes to play. I came from punk and into prog and stuff, and when we started playing together, it was just like…we didn’t want to create a certain type of band or whatever. We just wanted to mix all of our influences, especially, I think, playing in the black metal band Depths, or whatever, that we were playing with, I think that that definitely has seeped in a lot.
Brandon: Yeah.
Justin: Just being involved in that and surrounded by that, so, it’s just like…no limitations. Usually when we play a show, it’s kind of like, to keep it simple, ‘psychedelic prog,’ kind of space-ier elements, but…
Brandon: It’s been really comfortable playing together, too, because we haven’t forced ourselves to write anything specific, or try to be like, ‘OK, well, I want this to sound like this.’ We just play, and whatever we play or we jam, it just manifests itself into a song idea or something like that.
Justin: It’s a lot of, I think, working together where no songs are really fully written. Like, we’ll just come up with a riff, and then it’s very open to dissection and just like…if he feels like my bass should be doing something, or…we can throw suggestions out at each other without it being too domineering over each other’s voice.
DJ: There’s a guitar string on your bass…
Justin: Yes, there is.
DJ: What’s going on there?
Brandon: Overcompensating!!
Justin: No, I’ve always liked more trebly, melodic bass stuff. I rarely use the low E string on my bass, and I felt like…I don’t know what even inspired me to just take that off and put a guitar string on. Just my lack of using it. It’s tuned to a drop D, so I can…I don’t know if it’s an octave or harmonized. I guess an octave, playing octaves with the D string, and so from that, with us keeping it a two piece and not having another guitarist or whatever, or a guitar, it kind of fills that sound, where it’s not just all bass and kind of muddly or whatever. It can get that rich, high-end tone, and I think that complements our sound, or pushes it further into a different direction. I don’t know.
THREE: Are you planning to release an album in the future?
Brandon: Yes! That should have been done months ago.
Justin: Yeah, we want to for sure. We were talking to the drummer from Final Club. He was interested in recording us. Just finding the time where we feel comfortable with our songs, I guess, is the thing about it. I think there’s a lot of self-doubt, at least on my part. At least on this half of the band, on getting it going. That’s another thing. I don’t understand, like a lot of— I have such respect for the bands that are doing it yourself, like yourself with New Science Projects, that can go into it and just be very…actually do it. I think we do a lot of— we over-talk things, and then we have little result, but stuff like this kind of gives us a kick in the ass. I think that’s what we need right now.
Brandon: And money.
Justin: Yeah, there’s always the money aspect.
Justin: Yeah, we want to for sure. We were talking to the drummer from Final Club. He was interested in recording us. Just finding the time where we feel comfortable with our songs, I guess, is the thing about it. I think there’s a lot of self-doubt, at least on my part. At least on this half of the band, on getting it going. That’s another thing. I don’t understand, like a lot of— I have such respect for the bands that are doing it yourself, like yourself with New Science Projects, that can go into it and just be very…actually do it. I think we do a lot of— we over-talk things, and then we have little result, but stuff like this kind of gives us a kick in the ass. I think that’s what we need right now.
Brandon: And money.
Justin: Yeah, there’s always the money aspect.
– Interview and transcription by Dale Jones