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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

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Ghost Liotta Interview: Soft Synths, Hard Decisions

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It takes quite the level of trust for musicians to hand over their art to someone and give them free reign, usually the type of relationship a band might have with a longtime producer. For Ghost Liotta, it happened with first-time collaborators. Using vintage modular synths, live drums, and steel guitar, the trio of drummer James McAlister (The National, Sufjan Stevens), multi-instrumentalist Christopher Wray (Butch Walker), and multi-instrumentalist Zac Rae (Death Cab for Cutie), recorded material at Rae’s studio a few years back after each person was finished with a tour. Before finishing the material, a fire permanently closed Rae’s studio. A few years later, rediscovered, instead of looking back themselves, the band handed the hard drives over to producer John Spiker (Tenacious D) to see what he could come up with. The results weren’t what the band could have imagined at any point in the creation of the songs; yet, they were perfect. From dark, industrial, beat-centric tracks (“when we sleep”, “nonlinear b”) to ambient atmospheric drones (“back to dust”, “life cycle”), their self-titled debut album, released in August, flows seamlessly, never trying too hard, yet always surprising you.

A few months ago, I spoke to the band over Skype from their respective homes and studios in California. (They’d been able to see each other during the pandemic for a photo shoot but were otherwise busy doing sessions for other projects, so the interview was as much of a catchup session for them as it was an introduction to myself.) Read on as they talk about how they made the record, its aesthetic, whether they’ll follow the same creative process in the future, and how in the hell they came up with the band name.

Since I Left You: Why did you decide to make this record self-titled?

Zac Rae: It was a long discussion about the titling of this record and the names of the songs. Everything at one point was untitled because they existed as numbers on a hard drive, like “Untitled No. 6″ and “Untitled No. 9.” We initially kept that as an artistic choice--it wasn’t linear. It was like, “3, 2, 7, 9″ in the sequence we’d come up with. We realized it would be confusing for the whole world, so we titled everything but left the album title as the project.

Christopher Wray: The way we made the album, Zac, myself, and James were in Zac’s studio. We basically told the engineer to hit record and we’d start making music. Those jams would sometimes go for 20 minutes and sometimes an hour and 20 minutes. We’d pretty much stop at some point and go into the control room and drop markers on ideas we thought were cool. After doing that for three days, the whole saga of the studio burning and the hard drives, we gave the files to Spiker as a form of torture and he just started sending back these amazing arrangements. We just couldn’t believe it. We had all the raw material Spiker coalesced into an album.

SILY: The album definitely has a cohesiveness to it you don’t often get with raw improvisation.

ZR: That was a choice. There were times where we debated whether to leave something as a rolling, 10-minute amorphous thing or put it into a form that somebody listening cold can hear the development of the idea. We chose to make it a little more focused.

SILY: With the sequencing of the tracks, did you want to present them as mini suites? Or were you trying to change things up from track to track?

James McAlister: I don’t know that there was a super conscious thing, that we were making a record and had to have 10 songs that were three minutes long each. The way the songs were created was super unstructured. We let those dictate what each thing was. It wasn’t some endgame where we had to make a certain number of songs out of the material. What’s on the record is the best of what we pulled from those sessions, so there wasn’t forethought on the form of anything. That was the fun of it: Taking those moments and letting them be.

CW: That’s very much the spirit of the album too. James, I don’t know if you remember this, but going way back, I guess 6-7 years ago, the impetus for me reaching out to Zac before Zac and I had ever met was a project like this, if not this project. Zac’s been in the scene for a long time, and we have a lot of mutual friends and worked with the same people. I love what he does in the studio. I remember asking James since you were buds before, “Can you introduce me to Zac Rae? I want to do something that’s just for us, not for a particular artist or project.” We got breakfast at Kitchen 24 in Hollywood, and that was the early bird of this project.

JM: The way it came together is one decision leading to another, which is my favorite way to make everything. We even talked about having vocalists to collaborate, and the more we got down the road, we just liked what it was. We didn’t know what to call it, and that’s a good sign: When you make something you like and you’re happy at the end of it. I feel like I was constantly surprised by how great every decision came out, like, “Oh, wow, this is better than I thought, even.” All four of us make a lot of music, so it’s refreshing to be pleasantly surprised by something you do. We can go into work mode, get it done and get it right, but this felt more special than your average thing.

SILY: Would you say the record has a distinct mood?

JM: I think that’s what its strongest trait is.

ZR: When we were putting together the final sequencing and edits, we were all in a space thinking whether you could put it on with headphones and listen to it all the way through, or by yourself or in your car or biking in the wilderness or in an airplane. It sustains the space really well for the length of the record. We thought consciously about that and made some final decisions based on, “This piece doesn’t really fit in this flow,” and making one body.

SILY: When I first read that the album would have so many different types of synths, live drums, and steel guitar, I expected to be able to hear those instruments more. “I Am Thoughts” was a track where I could consciously hear drums, but otherwise, it was a pretty consistent aesthetic.

CW: The most conscious aspect of that was having the room in the recordings itself; in a genre that’s more traditionally direct, we wanted to be able to hear the room, hear amps. To me, I think that’s what gives the album its depth and uniqueness. Hearing chairs squeak. I can’t remember the name of the track, but one of the first ones we kind of organized into a vibe, the Overstayer on it was interacting with a really weird way where the reverb coming out of my amp was in another room. The overhead mics from the drum kit were catching the reverbs of my amp that were in another room which was creating this weird vibe. Very room-centric.

ZR: Things like James hitting the pad, generating an electronic sound, but you’re hearing the sound of the stick on the rudder, so it’s thudding and being sort of distorted, not like an electronic snare or a drum but somewhere between the two. I’m really proud of how that landed in the vinyl version.

JM: There’s nothing worse than, “Here’s an electronic beat we’re gonna record a drum kit over!” If I hear that one more time I’m gonna hang it up. [laughs] We got into this weird sort of in between space that’s hard to do based on the situation we have.

SILY: What’s the story behind the band name?

CW: I was on a session for another artist, and we were on break, and I was on a couch and two different conversations were happening at one time, and in one conversation, somebody said “ghost” and in the other conversation somebody said “liotta” and all my brain heard was that phrase. I thought, “That sounds like our band.”

SILY: I assume somebody was talking about Ray Liotta?

CW: I’m not sure. I don’t know how else that word gets thrown out.

JM: This whole thing is a sublet nod to Ray Liotta. I’m still hoping we can get successful enough that he can be in a video for us.

ZR: Ray Liotta as a ghost in space.

CW: In between his Chantix commercials. [laughs]

JM: We could figure out some kind of narrative where this is actually Ray Liotta’s band. All instruments by Ray Liotta. If you’re curious, confirmed: Ray Liotta did all of this.

SILY: Why are all the titles lowercase?

CW: Thank you! They are. On Spotify, when I uploaded tracks, it [wasn’t working.] When I emailed them, because I’ve seen other artists do that, I tried to get some sort of permission to do all lowercase. But I can’t figure out for the life of me how to do that on the streaming platforms, and I was sent a “No.”

I don’t know if it’s a visual thing, but artistically, it’s what felt right to all of us.

JM: I was pushing for everything being untitled, so I had to settle for lowercase letters.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

CW: We were looking at different artists and options, and an artist in Southern California...we saw this beautiful painting that he did, it looked like the world our album lived in. We reached out, he was super cool and said, “Go for it.”

SILY: What else is next for you?

ZR: We’re excited about making this music. It’s been three years since we created this. We’re excited about repeating this process and seeing what new influences we’re bringing to the table. I think later this year we’ll do that.

SILY: Do you think you’ll follow the same process, where Christopher, James, and Zac will make and give it to John to arrange?

John Spiker: I think that remains to be seen. In one sense, there was something beautiful that I knew nothing when I stepped into this stuff. When I first heard the music, I had no memories of the session or what I was searching for. It was this void where I could needle drop around it and let fate lead the way. It was a positive for my workflow. I don’t think it was the key to why it worked, but it was interesting and a first for me. This fresh exciting thing for me to jump into and discover moments in a different way rather than sitting into the control room listening to the guys playing. I think if I had that in my mind, I might want to think of it more structured of the way it was created. Since I didn’t have that, it was, “It could be anything.”

CW: If you’re okay with it, Spiker, it would be cool to recreate that and keep you in the dark! I would be stoked if we sent you an hour of music and nothing we recorded made the cut.

JS: This is like working backwards. This is usually year 10, album 5 for a band where it’s like, “No, you don’t need to come. Don’t come, actually, we’d rather you not be there.”

CW: The one thing I want to make sure we do even if the concept changes is being in the same room while we’re making it. James and Zac are not interested in making music in a silo. We all do that on other things. The magic that happens is being in the room vibing off of each other and making decisions. We didn’t use a single soft synth on the album. It’s all hardware. Because of that, we’re making decisions that are internal. You can’t go in and change a preset and dial something back. I like the permanence of making those decisions together in the moment.

SILY: Was that experience on the flipside for the three of you also unique where you made it and sent it off and had no idea how it would come back?

CW: Yeah, and it was due to complete trust. Spiker has been one of my best buds for a long time. I met him before I moved to L.A. He was the only person in the world I would have trusted to send all this stuff and say, “Do what you want with this.” We just said, “Do your thing.” If we had given it to anybody else, I don’t know if the passion would have been there. Anybody else would have required some direction or some kind of an idea of what they should be doing. Spiker just dove in and made shit happen.

ZR: Other projects in my life I have such a high degree of control over. It’s my band, I’m mixing it and controlling it and have control over every stage of the process. It’s so gratifying for Spiker to come in and handle that side of it and to be surprised almost like somebody was doing a remix of your record. It was really lovely for me to have that weight removed.

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suicidaloilpiglet · 7 years

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Paul Winkler (AU/DE)

Turmoil

2000

17:41

‘The films of Paul Winkler, one of Australia’s most prolific experimentalists, contest prevailing images of landscape as a reflection of national and social cohesion, instead meditating on a disconnection between everyday perception and the Australian environment.’ Alex Gerbaz

‘In his films Winkler is meticulously transposing rules of architectural construction into the building of a visual artifice. These films are like ephemeral pyramids. They are like monuments that we are at time permitted to enter. What lies buried within the inner chamber of a Winkler film is the sarcophagus of Technique itself. For those entering there are innumerable pitfalls lying in wait for the unwary weaned on the warm milk of mainstream cinema.’ Dirk de Bruyn

Quintessa Matranga and Rafael Delacruz and Marc Matchak (US)

Lebenswirklichkeit

2017

26:26

Young artists produce a barely fictional representation of themselves, quoting mumblecore and aspirational dramedy simultaneously. Through the narrative and productive gesture alike a localised situation is created within New York City. Of possibly ambitious young Americans possibly examining their possible careers. The mildest nostalgia is indicated, perhaps to San Francisco pre-dot com or Seattle pre-G8. They look at each other and they look at themselves.

Katherine Botten (AU)

2017

Sunday/ Sexy Young Artist Dominic Will Do ANYTHING To Get Into NEW18: Curator Couch. 2017 Map the world on my world. Map my world on the world.

Starring: Oscar Miller and Dominic Sargent.

Stephen Dillemuth (DE)

Elbsandsteingebirge 1789-1848

1994

50:51

“South of Dresden, the bizarre landscape of the Elbsandsteingebirge served as a treasure trove for the motifs of almost all German romantics. Their paintings today shape our romantic vision of the time between the French Revolution and the March Revolution in Germany. In a journey through pictures, films and texts, to a trip in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, we are confronted with our own projections: Was the romance political? Or was politics romantic? ”

Josef Strau: That you tried both, and ask if the exhibition is still related? Or has something new opened up?

Stephan Dillemuth: There was also a parallel, as here, for example, the time of the French Revolution and of the Vormarz (the period from 1815 to the March Revolution in 1848, the Red), one could certainly take any other historical section, but it is important That one then comes to different points, which can not be taken as a direct argument for the time, but which at least take up new points of view.

But what else, Schüttpelz has told us that many of the romantics are very young converts to Catholicism because they found this so medieval, and he compared it with the New German wave. It has played in a very funny and liberating way with totally respectable and bourgeois attitudes, but then immediately identified by the success, everything was already over again, and only a stock-conservative and boring story. So question: How can you keep a broken attitude, also against art? Not that the object or the action, for example, would be as it is meant, but if one believes in what results from it, the stability of one’s own attitude, etc., it becomes really serious. Romanticism is always at the beginning when it has something incredulous and playful, and it reacts like a medieval and Catholicism, but also in the sense of Arno Schmidt, to the surrounding chaos, from within me with outwardly protruding inwardness. Someone has also claimed that the aftermath of the French Revolution led to a revolution in art, which was later called Romanticism. But if you believe it again, you land at the Biedermeier.

Charlie Ahearn and Martin Wong (US)

Portrait of Martin Wong

1998

18:00

‘Martin painted the LES ghetto with the most enigmatic realism of bricks to be seen. In 1992 my friend Martin invited me up to his Ridge St apartment as he began his autobiographical Chinatown series reflecting his youth in San Francisco and later New York. After he was diagnosed with HIV he returned to SF where he later passed away in 1999.’ Charlie Ahearn

RIP Martin Wong

Alex Bag (US)

The Artist’s Mind

1996

30:01

‘This is living-dead art, a critical-hysterical acting out of the deodorized-bathroom neurotic, the suicidal biochemical-test subject and the terminal media addict we all recognize as ourselves.’ John Kelsey

‘This is a different time. Puppets and costumes seem funny, relevant. Club culture exists in the same temporal frame, not wedged between the covers of a coffee table book. Limelight is still open. Drugs are still fun/funny. The Internet is too slow for video.’ Rob Mckenzie

In commemoration of Damien Hirst’s 1995 Turner Prize, Bag made The Artist’s Mind, which takes the form of a PBS-style show chronicling a day in the life of a contemporary visual artist. In this episode, aspiring sculptor/painter “Damien Bag” demonstrates his creative process, which begins with eating breakfast, shopping at Wal-Mart and scouring the local highways in search of fresh road kill. Prompted to discuss his work, Damien says his pieces represent “a form of duality” and “a lot of metaphors.”

0rphan Drift (UK)

Bruises

1997

15:05

‘0rphan Drift is a collaborative media artist and avatar that emerged in London, 1994. The video, performances, installations and eponymous cyberpunk novel 0(rphan)d(rift>) addressed the future through the science -fictional, nascent technologies and related shifts in perception and matter-energy. 0D re-emerges in reconfigured form, again addressing the future as it speaks to us in this moment. Considering current narratives around climate change, bio-capital and related migratory patterns they re-imagine the urban as porous, interspecies and terraformed.’

Excerpts from a 30 minute video commissioned, with accompanying slide installation, by Beaconsfield Arts for screening at John Cage ‘Classic’ audiovisual event. Inaugural concert by (rout).

Here the re edit is set to a section of Cage’s album ‘Shock’, and produced on the 0rphan Drift analogue editing suite, complete with MX30 Panasonic mixing desk.

Hana Earles (AU)

$1070

2017

08:00

Working and making art, in the office and in your bedroom.

I could set the building on fire.

You shouldn’t smoke in your bed.

Carolee Schneemann (US)

Interior Scroll - The Cave, 1975 - 1995

1995

07:32

‘In the early ’60s, Schneemann’s “action” paintings, some embedded with images of nude female figures, literally moved from surface to environment, and her staging of work from static objects to interactive events. Along with her colleagues in the Judson Dance Theater, she pioneered crossovers from music, theater, and dance to art. Transferring the orgiastic qualities in her art from paint to the performance of “her own body,” Schneemann broke ground in charged Dionysian extravaganzas that yielded some of the most memorable and challenging images of the period: serpents writhing over her nude body (Eye Body: Thirty-six Transformative Actions, 1963); an erotic flesh fest of entangled bodies, chickens, sausages, and fish (Meat Joy, 1964); a lecture-performance in which she discussed her work and posed questions to an audience such as “Does a woman have intellectual authority?” as she dressed and undressed (Naked Action Lecture, 1968). In Interior Scroll, 1975, she unwound a scroll from her vagina and read a text about “vaginality.” For many, the problem with her exuberant, Reichian-influenced, utopian-tinged abandon, lies in her “performance” of her own body. We need only glance at the historical record for proof that prior to Schneemann, the female body in art was mute and functioned almost exclusively as a mirror of masculine desire. (Think of Yves Klein’s manipulation of nameless female models as voluptuous paintbrushes for the production of his “Anthropométries” series in the early ’60s.) We have done a terrible injustice to ourselves in continuing to marginalize Schneemann as an “angry woman” or “bad girl.” To pigeonhole her art as aberrant is to risk reducing her oeuvre to sensationalism. Schneemann’s blanket of protection from decades of neglect and misrepresentation has been her sheer exuberance and focused search for the real through uberphysicality. I’m not sure that we, the audience, have fared so well.’ Jan Avgikos

Lutz Mommartz and Sigmar Polke (DE)

Der schöne Sigmar

The Beautiful Sigmar

1971

22:44

New Year party with Sigmar Polke at the department of the Kohlhöfers in Düsseldorf / Germany.

‘The films of Lutz Mommartz are each based on a single idea; the effect then is more sustainable, says Lutz Mommartz. These ideas are often brilliant, sharp and provocative, but just as often they lose lot of their radicalism during the realization. Although Lutz Mommartz is a very conscious Filmmaker, his films convey ostensibly the image of a naive author. Lutz Mommartz manages to combine both features in his films. He knows about his enormous naive playfulness, but bringing it under rational control, he uses it consciously. Because he wants to achieve an effect with each film. Film should be a trigger that activates the audience. Although film currently could provide only general climate conditions or lead to climate improvements, but it could not lead to direct political action. The combination of aesthetics and politics rationale appears to him out of place; the commitment would get lost in the art. Lutz Mommartz believes in socialism, but (you should write that!): “Chemistry is the only chance for socialism!” Because 5 % conscious people would always face 95 % inconscious. For Lutz Mommartz there is no form of government that could counteract this. The relationship between these two groups is the only tragedy that there is today. In order to make the relationship bearable Lutz Mommartz sees only one solution: Drugs.’ H.P. Kochenrath

Pauline Senn and Juan Davila (AU)

50:48

‘Juan Davila is a writer, but first and foremost an artist. His controversial work still divides opinions. Davila was born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile, and lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. At the time of the military coup in Chile, when Pinochet seized power from Allende, Davila was part of the art scene there. His paintings in response, some of which appear in the documentary, shocked both those of the political left and right. In this documentary, Juan Davila talks about this period, and about modern art, censorship of expression and the oppression of the Mapuche Indians, the original inhabitants of Chile. He also talks about beauty and the shocking effect of painting it today. Davila has grown reluctant to the idea of being interview, given the failure of the media to address the complexity of his work. For the first time on film he speaks about this in terms of his upbringing - both bourgeois and Indian. We accompany Juan Davila as he revisits his indigenous Mapuche nanny’s daughter, women who have greatly influenced his work. He takes us to the oldest church in Santiago where, as a young buoy, he saw paintings by 17th century Indian artists in the Western manner that would profoundly influence his future work. And we see the artist at work, painting en plein air in a burnt forest at home in Australia.’

Jack Smith (US)

Flaming Creatures

1963

40:43

Sylvère Lotringer :Were you ever competitive? Did you ever believe in that?

Jack Smith: Yes, of course, when you’re young. It’s drilled into you, and you have to slowly find your way out of it, because you find it doesn’t work. Capitalism is terribly inefficient. The insane duplication, the insane waste, and the young only know what’s put in front of them… But then, by experience, things are happening to you and you find out that this doesn’t work. I mean this is not productive. It produces waste. I looked through your magazine and I was repelled by the title. It’s so dry, you just want to throw it in the wastebasket, which I did. Then I picked it out… Listen: Hatred of Capitalism is a good name for that magazine. It’s stunning. I’ll never admit that I thought of it.

SL: I doubt that by saying that directly you’ll change anything. Language is corrupt.

JS: Listen, you are a creature, artistic I can tell, that somehow got hung up on the issue of language. Forget it. It’s thinking. If you can think of a thought in a most pathetic language… Look at what I have to do in order to think of thoughts. I have to forget language. All I can do with no education, nothing, no advice, no common sense in my life, an insane mother I mean, no background, nothing, nothing, and I have to make art, but I know that under these conditions the one thing I had to find out was if I could think of a thought that has never been thought of before, then it could be in language that was never read before. If you can think of something, the language will fall into place

in the most fantastic way, but the thought is what’s going to do it. The language is shit, I mean it’s only there to support a thought. Look at Susan Sontag, that’s a phenomenon that will never occur, only in every hundred years. Anybody like that. She says things that you would never have thought of. And the language is automatically unique. Whatever new thoughts you can think of that the world needs will be automatically clothed in the most radiant language imaginable.

Bonny Poon (CA)

Beautiful Balance

2017

01:07:45

Of Bodies… Borders… Boredom…

A dazzling and debauched cast of zombies interpret the erotic story of heroes, Whitney and Taylor. The setting is Frankfurt am Main, Germany’s financial heart.

“We are very similar.” “A slave?”

Starring:

Nathaniel Monjaret, Adrian Manuel Huber, Aziade Cirlini, Mohamed Almusibli, Chingy Hong, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Julian Tromp.

#peoplesoup

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fuckyeahevanrwood · 7 years

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Rebel and a Basket Case

Evan Rachel Wood, known for her leading role as a heroine and oldest host in the HBO Original series Westworld, as well as her roles in films Thirteen, The Wrestler, TV series True Blood and the mini series Mildred Pearce. Her covetable award-winning catalog of acting roles barely highlights her deep rooted musical background she evolved at a very young age.

We get a squint of her prolific vocal talent as the star of the 2007 musical film ‘Across the Universe‘ as she covers 1960’s Beatles songs.

Fast forward to 2017; Evan and Zach chat with novelist Laura Albert about the inspiration for their debut album and the journey of writing songs whilst juggling an intense acting career.

Rebel and a Basket Case an edgy, 80’s inspired electro –pop duo who are reclaiming inspirational moments from their teenage music icons, The Breakfast club, Karaoke and verve for all that is a unicorn world.

Interview by Laura Albert

Laura: I very much love Westworld. Has the unfurling story which seems a constant peeling back of identity, seeped into your musical world?

Evan: Zach and I wrote a lot of the album while I was in production and while we were on a short hiatus. Playing that character definitely gave me a new found strength that trickled over into our music I’m sure. So many themes on the record have to do with overcoming oppressive situations and West World is very much the same.

Laura: Your music has an uplifting message — it understands suffering but offers support to lift others out of darkness. It brings to mind a quote from my mentor David Milch, “You know, people say that my writing is dark. And for me it’s quite the opposite. It sees light in darkness and it doesn’t try to distort darkness. The essential thing is that the seeing itself is joyful.” It seems like you share this philosophy – would be great to hear both your thoughts.

Zach: Yep. I’m all about being present in the journey. One of the greatest life lessons I’ve ever learned is that you “can learn just as much from a ‘bad’ experience, as you can a ‘good’ experience.” So either way, you are balancing the scales and moving “forward” more than anything. That is cumulative. That’s unstoppable. And growth is independent of how enjoyable a particular life challenge or experience is. So, I think we capture that in our music. There is always pain and hardship that comes along (eventually) in tandem with the greatest joy. That’s the spice of life. We all want to be happy. But those moments when we are not or challenged is when we learn the most about ourselves…and carry that knowledge forward allowing us to enjoy our happy moments all more the deeply.

Evan: A lot of the lyrics that I pulled out of my arsenal came from a time when I was suffering, heartbroken, oppressed, misunderstood, and generally teetering on madness. The fact that I made it out and feel like a better person for it taught me a lot. Especially because my work in film is usually really heavy and dramatic I felt I would drain myself if the music I made was similar. I wanted our songs and lyrics to acknowledge the struggle but also say, “Hey, you aren’t alone and it’s going to be ok. You will survive.” Making uplifting and empowering music can sometimes be more challenging. Just like it’s easier to take an insult rather than a compliment. I think especially where we are in the world right now, people know things are hard, people know things are bad, I feel like we need to be reminded that we can overcome.

Laura: You were brought together collaborating on music, can you tell us more about that, and how you both felt it was a fit worth exploring.

Zach: Originally, this tune I had written sounded pretty lame with my vocals in the lead…enter Evan. She has an amazing gift both as a vocalist, and as a writer, which I discovered later. Her talent was apparent, but when it seemed like our collaboration gave her a stage to fully explore the writer inside of her, I happy obliged. That she feels comfortable with me in that regard is an honor, and a pleasure. Her turn of word never ceases to amaze me, and opened me up musically to explore different territory. It’s incredible to work with her, see how her mind works, and see the connections she makes to music emotionally. And her explosiveness and dynamic ability as a performer is hard to rival. Which is lovely, because I have looked a long time for someone who can give me a run for my money in the performative arena. I think we push each other, and complement each other equally. That’s why it works.

Evan: Music was always my first love. I held it in such high regard and it was so precious to me I couldn’t even bring myself to put my own out in the world because I wanted it to be perfect. Linda Perry heard me sing, reached out to me and became a sort of mentor. She gave me that little push I needed and the confidence to just start, it didn’t have to be perfect. Once that door was open I started working with Zach on this play we did together and we started talking about music. We not only had great chemistry but it seemed like we had the same vision for what we wanted to achieve, not just musically but the general concept. We both loved androgyny, glam rock, and were born in the 80’s raised in the 90’s so we have a lot of the same influences stylistically. Zach was the first person I felt comfortable enough with to be vulnerable and share my writing and melodies. He was really patient and nurturing and it felt safe. Once those barriers were down it was like we couldn’t stop making music, it flowed so freely and naturally. Zach is incredible with the little details and he can hear things I just don’t. He is also the hook master!

Laura: I dig how your band name is taken from the stereotype-labels from John Hughes’ Breakfast Club — there is a power in taking on a label and owning it. When I was a kid, my mom taught be about the Chinese finger puzzle, a straw tube you put your fingers into. If you try to pull your fingers out, it tightens around your fingers. The only way out is in: when you press your finger deeper inside, then it magically opens. As public figures, so many tags or typecasting can get thrust on you. But you are both freely exploring a variety genres, but ultimately it feels like you are inviting the audience to go deeper than the label or category — and by doing so, you can follow any rule want. Do you feel free to explore any genre of music with Rebel?

Evan: I feel like we have so many influences and what I love about our first record is that it all fits together but it shows a vast range. We were exploring and finding different parts of ourselves musically as a band and I think that reflects in a cool way on this album. I also think you need to keep reinventing yourself as an artist because as people we don’t stay the same, we grow and evolve so that can’t help but be mirrored in what you create. I am hoping we are able to show many sides of who we are as artists while keeping the integrity of our vibe and mission.

Zach: With Ev on this one. As a writer, I am fairly disrespectful of any kind of genre restrictions. Of course things need to sound cohesive, and we definitely have an aesthetic as RB&C but, rules are made to be broken. And music in this era we are in is so fluid. Which mirrors what we are seeing movement wise as a culture. With structure comes freedom. No fear to explore.

Laura: Zach, it’s awesome how varied your creative outlets have been, did anyone every try to dissuade you from being so expansive in your artistic endeavors or outlets? Zach did you always know you wanted to make music?

Zach: Yes. Pretty much a LOT of people tried to dissuade me. They all had the best intentions, thinking that they were doing me a favor in their advice to streamline my energies… that I would be more focused on one thing, give move to just acting or dancing etc, and clear the field and my calendar. Unfortunately, that often backfires in modern society, and gone are the days of the Greeks, Romans, and MGM Pictures when we encouraged artists (and people) to be well-rounded ; confident that the X-training in experience would yield more interesting and varied results. So, in short I told those individuals thanks but no thanks. I wouldn’t be the musician I am today without the extensive background I have in dance, acting etc. They all feed one another.

Laura: How do you form your fashion sensibilities? They seem very playful.

Zach: I like clothes that elevate an aesthetic. That allows me to feel like I can transcend the norm and connect to something ethereal. Like lights and glitter. Evan?

Evan: I always view my alter ego ‘Basket case’ as just a heightened version of myself. Like when you go to burning man and you are allowed to create whatever character you want that would normally raise a few eyebrows on the streets. Thats why music and rock n roll have always been so alluring to me, it represented full expression and freedom. We also want it to reflect our message which is ‘be loud and proud and who you are and have fun doing it!

Laura: What are your tour plans? Your music has a cinematic edge to it, would you be interested in creating soundtracks for films together?

Zach: We are playing regionally as much as possible and focusing on our unicorns on the West Coast. We are playing a Pride fest in Chicago and Oslo in June. Soundtracks for films? Absolutely….. lock me in a room with synth pads and a picture with lots of coffee any day.

Evan: I am actually directing my first film this spring so you might hear a couple of new tunes from R&BC in there.

Laura: Evan, when I became a parent, a fierce new kind of advocacy blossomed in me – I needed to protect and advocate for this child, and I would do what ever that required. With the art I created right after my son was born, I felt a not-dissimilar form of advocacy that was new in me. Not just for my art, but the idea of this child going through any of what I had experienced — sexual and physical abuse — chilled me to my core. I knew I could not shield him from suffering, but I felt that, by giving a voice to what had happened, by telling and raising awareness, I could perhaps make the world safer for him. Did you experience anything like that?

Evan: Absolutely. I feel like it is my duty as a person and as a mother to be honest about my journey to help people on theirs. I hope I can set a good example for my son in that way. There is no shame.

Laura: Film acting reminds me of writing, in that there is no direct contact with the audience at the moment of creation. What I loved about making music was feeling locked in with an outside energy and not being alone, feeling that there could be a transmigration of spirit. When you sing, there is a sense that you are going to the depth of your being to bring connected emotion into being. Do you feel that music allows for more of felt or immediate shared sense of experience than your acting does?

Evan: Yes, it’s like doing theatre you get an immediate response from the audience. No matter how many times you rehearse, the second you are confronted by your audience everything changes, you feed off of their energy and go to another place. You lift each other up and the connection is palpable and immediate. Seeing people dance and sing to something that came from your soul which in many ways is your soul, there are no words to describe it. Feeling like you are raising people’s spirits and turning something painful into something joyous is why I do it.

Laura: From your tweets to your interviews, it seems you are inviting others to move out of where they might be stuck, to come alive in their compassion, to move past an illusion of isolation of self. Do you think of directing and writing as other tools for you to take problems of our soul and spirit and transform them into issues of craft, so that others might care about what they did not care about before?

Evan: All the art I make is to release my feelings and express myself in ways I can’t otherwise. It’s why I call myself an artist because it’s just something I have to do in some way or another to survive. It’s like air to me. I don’t know what I would without it. If by doing that and being honest wakes people up and makes them view themselves and the world in a way they hadn’t before, if breaks down walls and opens up doors then I have done my job well.

#evan rachel wood #rebel and a basketcase #interview #interviews 2017 #article #articles 2017 #zach villa #contentmode

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