We handed a disposable camera (remember those?) to the members of Canadian rock band Arkells and asked them to document their day at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees Music Festival. Take a look at their shenanigans below, and be sure to catch them on tour like, right now. This is not a live performance you want to miss.
[/tps_header]On hot days, we are very good at finding the AC.
Ron Gallo is calling us out.
The ex-Toy Soldiers frontman recently released his first solo album Heavy Meta, an aggressive departure from his roots Americana past. The album’s heavy, energetic garage rock vibes may make it impossible for you to sit still in your seat, but they’ll knock you right back down again if you pay any attention to the lyrics. The Nashville by way of Philadelphia artist’s debut is a raw and poetic expression of frustration, holding a glaring mirror up to societal issues, sometimes ironically, and oftentimes more harshly.
I sat down with Gallo at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees Music Festival to discuss Heavy Meta and where he goes from here.
Vinyl Mag: Who are you most excited to see this weekend?
Ron Gallo: J. Roddy [& The Business]. On Thursday, we did the kickoff party with FIDLAR and Twin Peaks. And they were both amazing, and then they were the two bands I was most excited to see again. We caught FIDLAR again, and we missed Twin Peaks, because we were parking. Third Eye Blind for sure. I would say Ryan Adams, but he’ll probably cancel an hour before his set. I actually want to see Hamilton Leithauser, because I was a big Walkmen fan.
VM: Do you have any go-to Atlanta activities?
RG: We always end up at Junkman’s Daughter. Went to 24 hour diner with really good organic food—the R. Thomas Deluxe Grill.
VM: Can we talk a little bit about the concept for “All The Punks Are Domesticated”?
RG: Before I moved to Nashville from Philly, I had a job cleaning houses for the last six months that I was there saving up for the move. Basically, the job was getting up early, and you would team up with one other person, and you’d hit four or five houses in one day. And all of the people I worked with were all these punk rock kids. Just punks, through and through. We were cleaning houses, and the girl would be wearing this shredded punk rock tee and have all these tattoos and play in her punk band, but she would talk about her student loans, or like, “me and my boyfriend just got this apartment, we’re financing this new car, I’m trying to go to med school.” And it was just this really funny thing, like the aesthetic of the lifestyle in comparison with just listening to her talk about all of these…I shouldn’t say her, because it was multiple people, but it was kind of the same experience…and then the title came to me. Then at the same time, I was in Philly, and I didn’t know what I was doing in my life at all, and I had this sort of underlying misery just trying to figure it all out and making music and having my frustrations with that as well. So the title came from that, and then I kind of put it all together with my feelings about the current state of music and the world.
VM: In your bio, you said that Heavy Meta was “the first few findings from my guerrilla treasure hunt for bullshit.” What kind of bullshit did you uncover?
RG: A lot. So like, externally in the outside world, “Why Do You Have Kids?” and “Kill The Medicine Man” are comments on outside things. And also, “Kill The Medicine Man” is an internal confrontation. But also, “Poor Traits Of The Artist” is tongue-in-cheek me bitching about how hard it is to be an artist in the modern day, in a whiny but a self-aware way. So “Why Do You Have Kids?” was just seeing things in the street, like bad parenting. “Put The Kids To Bed” [is about] sort of being in stagnant, complacent, dead relationships, and we’ve all been there, and I’ve been there. It’s all pretty reflective of just starting to dig in and look at the world around you and look at yourself and be like, “it doesn’t need to be this way. Let’s get to the bottom of what’s bothering you. Let’s get to the root of the suffering.” And then look at it, and confront it, and that’s how you can start to overcome it. So that’s really what the record is.
VM: Tell me more about the creative process of the record as a whole.
RG: I kind of just like to live it in a way. Just kind of living with it and looking for things. For example, “Why Do You Have Kids?” was a very clear creative process, because it was just seeing something, asking a question in my head, walking a couple of blocks, and then the song comes out—words first and then music. Not always words first, but for the most part usually that’s how it goes. I don’t like to limit it to one thing. Certain songs on the record—”Poor Traits” and “Put The Kids To Bed”—started as I took a Casio keyboard, and I pressed play…I found a fake drum beat, and I let it loop for three minutes, and I went and played bass and created this musical bed. It’s always different. I think lyrics are the most important part to me, and that’s something that you can always be thinking about. Notes in your phone and voice memos and stuff, and then kind of see how it comes together.
VM: You’ve said that you believe the universe is in all of us. What does that mean?
RG: Well, it is. I do believe there is a sense of oneness. There is no difference between you and I or anyone else or any other living thing. Even when you kind of look at the way that our bodies work versus the way the universe works, they’re almost mirror images of each other. We are all composed of atoms that work together for a greater good, and that’s the same as the universe…also just the idea of perspective: that the universe only exists because [we are] here to experience it. Without us, it’s not there—and not in a self-centered way, but in a unifying way. It’s about realizing the limitless potential people have, the capability to become a part of that and surpass this distraction, material world bullshit that we reside in.
VM: Back to “Poor Traits [Of The Artist]”—it does call out the artist. It’s intentionally meta. There is a line “is luck a pursuit worth pursuing.” Do you think this is all luck?
RG: No, actually. Not anymore. I think for awhile, especially at the time, it seemed—even what we’re doing today, being here at Shaky Knees sitting in this room on a beautiful day—seemed like an impossibility. Like, how do you get there? How do you put records out? How do you reach people? Like, it just seemed like an impossible task, for doing it for eight years with not much quote-unquote reward. So I guess when I wrote the song, and I was frustrated about it, it seemed like it came down to luck, just being at the right place and the right time. But I think the realization, too, was that it just comes back to what you’re making, and it’s music. Nobody needs it. Nobody ever needs to hear what any person ever needs to say. It’s been done a million times. There’s millions of bands that all have something to say. Every sound has been explored. So the thing it comes back to is, what can you contribute to the world? What can you actually give to people that is beneficial to them or can better their lives or make them think or make them feel? So it just comes back to doing that. It’s not really luck. Make something that is meaningful to you or that really hits with somebody, and it will work the way that you want it to. And I think that the God’s honest truth is that, if it’s not working, it comes down to what’s being made. I don’t think anybody that’s ever done anything earnest and good that had even a bit of a work ethic just completely went unheard forever. Sometimes it’s a longer road. But that would be a really sad story. I just don’t think that it happens like that. I think it’s just making good shit and being down to put the work together and not giving up. Luck can expedite the process, but it’s not the be-all end-all.
VM: Do you write on the road?
RG: Always. We started recording this random concept EP that came out of nowhere. Our friend Chris had this idea, and he called me and told me about it. It’s like an extension of Heavy Meta. It’s kind of based around using puns, and it’s all about the music industry. It’s gonna just be fun and this lighthearted concept, extension of Heavy Meta, and then we have a lot of the next album pretty much written and worked out. We play some of the songs now, and we’ll probably start recording that soon.
Ron Gallo is currently on tour in Europe and gearing up for upcoming US shows with Twin Peaks followed by a west coast tour with White Reaper. Dates below.
Ron Gallo On Tour:
May 25 – Stroomhuis – Eindhoven, Netherlands
May 26 – London Calling Festival – Amsterdam, Netherlands
May 27 – Sniester Festival – The Hague, Netherlands
May 28 – LA MECANIQUE ONDULATOIRE – Paris, France
May 29 – Shacklewell Arms – London, United Kingdom
Jun 01 – Nelsonville Music Festival – Nelsonville, OH
Jun 02 – Nelsonville Music Festival – Nelsonville, OH
Jun 04 – Governors Ball – New York, NY
Jun 06 – Chameleon Club – Lancaster, PA
Jun 07 – The Stone Pony – Asbury Park, NJ
Jun 09 – Fete Lounge – Providence, RI
Jun 10 – The Ballroom at The Outer Space – Hamden, CT
Jun 11 – Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY
Jun 17 – Kilby Court – Salt Lake City, UT
Jun 18 – Neurolux Lounge – Boise, ID
Jun 21 – Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR
Jun 23 – Shoreline Amphitheatre – Mountain View, CA
Jun 24 – Shoreline Amphitheater – Mountain View, CA
Jun 25 – Constellation Room at The Observatory – Santa Ana, CA
Jun 26 – Soda Bar – San Diego, CA
Jun 27 – Troubadour – West Hollywood, CA
Jun 28 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ
Jun 30 – Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO
Jul 01 – recordBar – Kansas City, MO
Aug 02 – Turf Club – Saint Paul, MN
Aug 05 – Grant Park – Chicago, IL
Day One of Shaky Knees kicked off bright and early with a set from Cymbals Eat Guitars over at the Ponce de Leon stage. Not a bad way to jump start your day, with front row head-banging right at the crack of noon. The lineup for Friday was overwhelming in the best way, with no down time from one kickass band to the next. We’re genuinely surprised we even found time to eat anything. We ran straight from Cymbals to Zipper Club, then on to Temples followed quickly by Margaret Glaspy (hero), and from Glaspy we hauled over to Car Seat Headrest. Post Car Seat at the Peachtree Stage, we made it to The Growlers on the Piedmont Stage for half a set, and then booked it back to Ponce to catch everyone’s new favorite band, Pinegrove.
Pinegrove’s set was one of the most anticipated of the day for us (although, with this bottomless smorgasbord of fantastic artists, it was hard to choose which set to get the most pumped for), and we weren’t alone. Though the Ponce stage was the smallest of the three, the New Jersey band commanded a crowd, and personal space was impossible to find. The six-piece folk rock band took us through most of 2016’s Cardinal, only leaving off third to last track “Waveform,” which…yeah, we get. Even though we’re probably never going to see them play our favorite track “Peeling Off the Bark” from 2015’s Everything So Far, they did pull out “Angelina,” “Problems,” “The Metronome,” and “Recycling” from their debut release, so we were more than satisfied. They also played big guns “Old Friends” and “Aphasia,” and ended with our latest on-constant-repeat obsession “New Friends” for the finale.
From Pinegrove, we settled in at the main (Peachtree) stage for Wolf Parade, followed immediately by Portugal. The Man, and then Cage The Elephant.
Matt Shultz’s presence as Cage The Elephant frontman Friday at Shaky Knees is not the first time that crowd chatter has compared him to Mick Jagger. Shultz’s stage presence is memorable, to put it lightly. While he isn’t exactly Jagger, he has surely proven himself as an epic (and we don’t throw that word around too often) performer time and time again. Cage’s Shaky Knees set was mega high energy and captivating.
Post-Cage, we fought our way to a good vantage point at the Piedmont Stage for Pixies‘ set, which was a lot easier to obtain after a third of the crowd dispersed halfway through the set once the band finished “Where Is My Mind?” (really, guys?). Side note: bless Shaky Knees for booking the Pixies for two years, first in 2015 and again this year. Anyone who missed this set made a huge mistake. We’re still reeling.
Legends in their own right, headliners LCD Soundsystem took the stage Friday night of Shaky Knees like the kings of electronic rock they are. They walked onto the stage to the Peech Boys’ anthemic “Life Is Something Special,” a fitting opener to one of the best and most highly anticipated sets of the weekend. James Murphy then commenced orchestrating a giant festy dance party as the group worked through a setlist that catered to all, especially lovers of their debut self-titled and 2007’s Sounds Of Silver, breaking down into a beautiful, swaying close with “All My Friends.”
Day Two was definitely the slower day of the festival, on top of being the rainiest of the three. (Though to be real, it only seriously rained for about five minutes and was a welcome refresher from the heat.) While Friday and Sunday both boasted lineups that were destined to have us well over our daily “steps” goals with all of the time-overlap sets we’d be running to, Saturday’s offerings gave us a little more down time to catch some shade or, you know, actually taste the food truck fare we were scarfing down.
The day started promptly at noon again, this time over at the main stage for North Carolina duo Flagship followed by LA’s The Record Company, and then on over to the Piedmont Stage for British pop singer Bishop Briggs, who you may recognize from her mega hits “River” and more recently “Wild Horses.” Since “River” first released in January 2016, Briggs has been rapidly climbing the charts. While her soulful performance was a great introduction for new fans, we would love to see Briggs break away from sounding exactly like her recordings and bring something extra to her live performance. We’re super excited to see what is in store for the emerging artist, and we’ll be keeping an eye on her for sure.
Dr. Dog was the most anticipated set of the day for us, and we posted up at the Piedmont Stage to catch the psych rock band for their early evening set. The band took the stage and wasted no time on teasing the audience, launching right into fan favorite “How Long Must I Wait” off of 2012’s Be The Void, later on also gifting us with tracks “That Old Black Hole,” “These Days, and “Heavy Light” from the same album. The rest of the set consisted of a good mix of their catalog, surprisingly lacking heavy focus on this year’s Abandoned Mansion and also exploring 2013’s B-Room as well as 2010’s Shame, Shame, with a couple of tracks from 2008’s Fate and last year’s The Psychedelic Swamp for good measure. They closed the set with their signature cover of Architecture in Helsinki‘s “Heart It Races.”
Day Three was a beast. Starting off with Hoops at the Piedmont stage at 12:30 p.m., it’s hard to pinpoint what the highlight of the day was between sets from Whitney, Hamilton Leithauser, Fruit Bats, Third Eye Blind (might be a real contender, because #nostalgia), The Shins, Ryan Adams (who basically just made fun of The Shins the whole time), and Phoenix.
That said, we’re a little bit nuts for Fruit Bats over here, and we were front row rail for the entire set, taking enough videos to make our phones complain that we were running out of storage. Our obsessive fandom was rewarded later on during The Shins’ set, when Fruit Bats frontman Eric D. Johnson (former member of The Shins) jumped in with them on tambourine.
Despite personal favorites, it has to be acknowledged that Phoenix was genuinely, indisputably incredible. Their hour-and-a-half set was masterful, complete with the coolest backdrop we’ve ever seen—a slanted mirror aerially reflecting the stage below, with the floor projecting trippy visual effects. The entire surrounding crowd was near hysteria throughout the entire show up until their encore which included—obviously—2009’s smash hit “1901.”
We’ve talked about this before, but we are all about the sustainability factor of refillable water stations in lieu of plastic bottles, and Shaky Knees was one of the first festivals we ever saw implement this system. We’ve been seeing this more and more on the festival circuit, and we’re so glad that it’s becoming a best practice. Shoutout to Shaky for being proactive here.
Also want to note that Centennial Olympic Park is a great location. When they hosted the festival at Central Park in 2015, we thought it was perfect and wondered if it could get any better. Plenty of shade, stages far enough apart that their sound didn’t step on each other…it seemed like the ideal spot to plant this festival, and when we heard about the move in 2016, we were skeptical. It turns out our doubts were unfounded. Yes, Centennial is a smaller park, but this didn’t, as we worried, result in overcrowding. There were less stages than before, but this mainly resulted in easier transition from stage to stage without feeling like you had to leave a set 10 minutes after arriving in order to be on time for the next. In short, this festival is excellently planned, and runs like clockwork. We’re believers.
Since its inception, Shaky Knees’ consistently stellar lineup has made it stand out, and it remains one of our all-time favorite festivals, from soup to nuts. The bottom line is, the lineup is always unbeatable and, more importantly, uncompromising. Keep it up, guys, and we’ll keep insisting that this is the festival that should not be missed.
VM: On the heels of your last album and many successes, you guys released the single “Baby I’m Broken” this past March. Where did inspiration come from for this single?
CV: When we wrote that song we just wanted to do something that had some space to it. A riff that had space and the melody kinda wove in and out. When we had the form of the song completed we felt there was something missing, so we added a harmonica part to round out the song. We felt it was done once that harmonica was on there.
VM: The song delivers a similar rawness and energy heard on Give It Back to You. Will we be hearing more new music from The Record Company in the upcoming months?
CV: We are currently on tour, but we have been writing the new album and every time we are home (which hasn’t been the often). We will be taking the end of the year off the road to finish the record.
VM: What does the behind the scenes creative process look like for The Record Company?
CV: We are a collaborative band. Everybody contributes. We split everything equally from work, to creativity, to money be it gain or loss.
VM: How would you describe the band’s chemistry?
CV: We are very close as friends. It’s not uncommon for us to get off the road and be hanging out on the back porch listening to records and having drinks the night after we get home. We enjoy each other as people as well as musicians. That comes in handy when times are tough or you have to make decisions together.
VM: The band’s onstage presence is absolutely captivating. How you would describe your live performances to someone who may be interested in seeing the band for the first time this weekend at Shaky Knees?
CV: We see every performance as one less time not one more time. So why not play your guts out? You only get so many times to do the things you love in this life so love it big and lay it out there is out motto.
VM: Are there any artists you are excited to see at Shaky Knees?
CV: LCD, Sylvan Esso, The Revivalists, FIDLAR, Shovels & Rope, Fantastic Negrito, and The Growlers.
Live music and the beach, does it really get any better than that? In a few hours, fans will be flocking to the white sandy beaches and the turquoise water of Gulf Shores, AL, for the annual Hangout Music Festival.
This year’s line-up boasts the likes of Mumford & Sons, Phoenix (who has replaced Frank Ocean), Twenty One Pilots, Chance the Rapper, Weezer, Major Lazer, MGMT, and many more.
Hangout kicks off tomorrow with an annual Thursday Kickoff Party featuring Migos, Cherub, Tchami, DJ Jazzy Jeff and special guests.
So whether you’re stuck at your desk the rest of the week or prepping to make the journey to the Gulf, give our Hangout playlist a spin to get you weekend ready.
See you on the beach!
Lo Moon is somewhat a mystery. And it’s that allure and intrigue that’s captured our attention.
In a day and age where audiences are bombarded with high amounts of digital content, Lo Moon has kept it simple. One song. That’s it. We’ve only heard one song, “Loveless,” from the LA trio (Matt Lowell, Crisanta Baker, and Sam Stewart), and it’s left us wanting more.
We sat down with Matt Lowell ahead of Lo Moon’s first festival performance at Shaky Knees this weekend. Check out what he had to share…
VM: There’s a lot of mystery and intrigue surrounding the band. But beyond the mystery, there is a trio that is all about the music and doing the music ‘right.’ I would love to talk about that process of doing that music right.
Matt Lowell: As a band, I think music is so important and integral to our lives. When we decided to start rolling out music, back when making the record and songs, we wanted to take our time and make sure after a certain amount of time passed that we still like what we did and we still had a feeling about it. For us it’s not about just getting it right in terms of getting it right in the way we present it. It’s important to us in the way that we feel about it and I just think now that sometimes music is just rushed out because it’s easy to put it out. We just wanted to go against that grain a little bit. We felt that just because SoundCloud exists and just because we can put it up whenever, and we can get a reaction and put clips up here and there…
Everything right now is very instant, especially with the scrolling culture; you can like and move on and you can like and move on. We just said, what happens if we put something out and we take our time on it, and then we let that live and its own space for a while. Let’s see how many people can find it and let’s see what it does. And eventually it just starts adding up and then it becomes a little bit more real overtime. Then it’s up to us to then decide what the next move is and how we feel about it, because now we’ve got a larger scope. Especially with a song like “Loveless,” we just felt like it was going to take time for people to find it. People are still finding it, and it’s not done. We’re kind of into this idea that song live on and that’s kind of the basis behind my song writing style. It’s trying to make songs that emotionally connect and hopefully live for a longer time than a month on SoundCloud and then replaced by another song the next week or something.
VM: You mentioned taking time in this day and age, because everything today just feels so instantaneous.
ML: Everything is. From ordering food..
VM: Exactly, we can just Uber food now on an app.
ML: And I think that’s great. But I think there’s something to be said about artists having control. The fact that today you don’t necessarily need a label and they can put music out whenever they want. But for us, it took time to find the voice and we then wanted to give that voice some time to find its way.
VM: I think it’s so great, especially in this day and age, that your label and Chris Walla have this understanding of the need for time time and giving you the time to experiment as a trio. I know you guys have been working on an album that it’s been said it’s set to be released this year. What has the creative behind-the-scenes process looked like for that album?
ML: This record was an interesting one. You know, I started working on “Loveless” a long time ago and then move to LA and met Crisanta and Sam, and I had a bunch of songs that we’re just really basic demos. We just started working from the ground up and becoming a band and jamming them, spending hours and hours on one song in my back house just trying to figure them out. The beautiful thing about this band is that everyone, even if it’s something that I wrote, everyone brings their own connection to the music in the way that they approach the song. Everyone is really conscious of trying to feed the song and feed the emotion. With that it just starts becoming apparent when everything feels right. A lot of it is an experiment. When we did have the songs to a point where the band felt really good about them, we then went into the studio and started on the process. Chris then took that and deconstructed it even one step further. There were times when we were just listening to the vocal and then the drums for hours and days. We had to just figure out where the emotional quality was going to fit. Frank Tetaz who also co-produced the record, Frank and I spent months going over lyrics and just him getting inside my head and figuring out what I was talking about, why it was important, and connecting to it emotionally. So when it came out out of the speakers it felt like that. I think that’s what we’ve hoped we’ve achieved with the album and the songs.
The reaction on “Loveless” has been very emotional which is kind of a beautiful thing. That’s kind of the whole point. But behind the scenes there is a lot of jamming, and tweaking, and moving, and building the knocking it down, and building it again until it feels like a thing. I think that’s true with any great art, you just need to work it. I think what we’ve made reflects a time and we’ve put everything we have into it. We gave it the time again, and that feels like the essence and the ethos of this band.
VM: And that’s a beautiful thing for a band.
ML: It really is.
VM: You mentioned being able to experiment. Does that mean experimenting with sound?
ML: All kinds of experimentation, arrangements, sounds. “Loveless” was four minutes at one point, then it became five minutes at one point, then it became seven minutes at one point, and we finally made it to seven minutes because of the arrangement, the feel, and the emotional journey. That song was built over five years. At times the bridge didn’t feel right, ya know, ‘ why doesn’t the bridge feel right? Let’s get into a room and jam it.’ Crisanta would come up with a piano part, Sam would start a drone, I’d be playing a synth, and then all of a sudden it was a thing. It’s all over the map. That song, Chris and I spent over 5 hours arranging it in different ways, moving pieces around, finding out with the second versus trying to say, rewriting lyrics… it’s a lot of whatever it needs. And I think that’s the thing, whatever it needs, you just have to commit yourself to doing it.
VM: For someone who hasn’t seen your live show before, and may only know the song ” Loveless,” what can we expect out of a live performance? I know we’re going to get a taste of new music from you guys, but what does that feel like?
ML: I think it’s a little bit heavier and hits a little bit harder. It’s a little bit more rock. I think the bones of everyone in the band is rock – we were rock kids, we’re children of the 90s. I think a lot of the beauty is that it has a lot of space and it’s just heavier in a way that comes with the nature of just playing live. Anyone who has already heard some of the recorded versions and they come to the show have been really excited about that. I think it’s going to be really interesting putting out the studio versions and seeing what it’s like when people come to the gig.
VM: And we are very excited and looking forward to your set this weekend at Shaky Knees.
ML: This will actually be our first festival.
VM: That’s amazing, and you guys are on some really big festival names following Shaky Knees, like Gov Ball and Lolla. We’re excited to have you in Atlanta, and you’re playing the Earl for a late night show with Temples which will be awesome. Are you excited to see any of the performing artists this weekend?
ML: I think we’re really excited to see LCD and the Pixies. Those are the two we’re most excited for, and to just see some other bands.
VM: Well I know Atlanta will be happy to have you this weekend and like I said, we are just excited to see more music live from you guys. Now, is it possibly the fall, maybe, for some new music?
ML: I hope so. We’re looking towards the fall, but we’re also coming out with a new single right around the corner. So something is coming out soon and then we’ll go from there. We’ll see how that goes and if everything is right, it will be the fall.
Lo Moon plays Shaky Knees on Friday at 1:30 PM at the Criminal Records Presents: Ponce del Leon stage. Don’t miss it!
By tomorrow, bands and their fans will be swarming Atlanta, Georgia for the Shaky Knees Music Festival. On Day One, listeners will get a chance to hear Zipper Club rock the Peachtree Stage at 1:00 p.m. at Centennial Olympic Park.
Zipper Club may make indie pop music now, but the band members didn’t start out that way. Mason James hails from the Brooklyn punk band Cerebral Ballzy, and Lissy Trullie had her own killer indie-rock career. Now, however, the two have joined forces, working alongside drummer Damar Davis and producer James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins.
To gear up for their Shaky Knees performance, we chatted with the three musicians all about their latest tunes, what makes them unique, and even what makes them panic.
Vinyl Mag: Tell me about your song “Regrets.”
Mason James: I was writing it in a room actually with my dog at the time, and it’s kind of funny—you can hear my dog scratching his stomach or his chain jingling, and I think it kind of adds a little subtle dog vibe. That was a really cool track for me because I got to experiment with some new stems that we had, and that was kind of a definitive song in the songwriting process for the band. It was a very definitive song for kind of the direction of the sound we wanted to go. The process for the record was kind of written in three groups of four, and that was one of the initial songs that was written. And that song kind of shaped where we went from there—“Breath” came out of that and other stuff afterward.
VM: You’ve said before that Zipper Club’s style is a bit different from the music you’ve made before. What inspired the change?
MJ: I wanted to try new things! I definitely felt a little bit confined—punk and hardcore music can have a lot of rigid boundaries and a lot of people telling you what it is and isn’t in that genre, and I kind of just wanted to say, “screw all that stuff; I want to make what I think sounds cool.” So, if I want to put some weird sounding synth pad or some chimes or some bells or some reverb guitar, then why not? And that’s kind of what we did.
Lissy Trullie: My style of songwriting is not such a leap. Mason played in a punk band; I had my own thing, which is like still sort of pop-ish. It was more experimental and R&B. But I think it was both for us a combo to do something new.
MJ: Lissy and I came together and had a lot of the same mutual respect for a lot of the same bands, and kind of did draw on those influences. So, as a result our sound kind of meshed, and we’re able to collaborate in an awesome way.
VM: What does each of you bring to the table?
LT: I think we just bring our special selves! That’s kind of half the battle, especially when you’re writing together. You know, inevitably you have a view from yourself, a perspective, your voice, your inherent style of what you do. But I think if we’re talking skillset, writing music is my jam. It’s my favorite thing to do. It’s what I’ve always done and what I absolutely love, love, love to do. I love to be in the studio and play around with ideas and experiment with different things.
MJ: I think we’re all very different individuals in a sense. If you go to certain festivals and stuff like that and you hang out backstage, you can see certain people in certain groups, and they all look very much the same in a lot of different ways. You know, they’ve got their matching outfits and all that sort of stuff. We’re definitely not that, and I think that’s what’s cool about this project. It’s much more reflective of the modern world, modern times. We all come from different backgrounds and different musical tastes and different styles. So, I think we all bring a unique aspect to the table that is different than most bands, and I think that’s the cool thing about Zipper Club.
VM: Do you prefer writing/recording or performing?
LT: We love both!
MJ: I think both have their awesome side, and I mean obviously there are not cool parts. I think every band that writes music should love writing music. We love writing music but also want to share it with people, and we try to share it very visually. Our live show is definitely very … we have lasers and have really cool projections and stuff like that. We want to make it an experience for everyone that’s coming out to see our show. We love sharing what we do with people. So, I think they’re both equally as good.
VM: Do you have a favorite venue you’ve played?
MJ: I’m excited to go back to this bar that we’re playing in London. It’s this really divey, shitty bar, but it’s super London and super fun. We’re playing there in a couple weeks.
VM: What part of playing at Shaky Knees are you most looking forward to?
LT: The Pixies, LCD Soundsystem and then I think my friend’s band is playing there—Public Access TV.
DD: I’m excited to see Phoenix!
VM: Do you have a favorite song to perform live?
DD: My favorite song to play live would probably be “Tick Tock.”
LT: I’m going to have to go with “Breath.”
MJ: My favorite would be our cover of “Mad World” we did with Curt from Tears for Fears. That was definitely an awesome live experience.
VM: What’s your mindset like before getting on stage?
LT: “Ohhhh, shit.” That’s my mindset.
DD: It really depends on how our soundcheck was.
VM: Do you have any pre-show band rituals?
LT: We do a little huddle thing. Of course, we always want to play and we always want to play a good show especially, but it really depends on the venue you’re at, and we have a complicated thing happening on stage. So, if we feel like something might not be in the right place, you know, it can really put us into a panic. But, we’re working on that!
Life is a rollercoaster. The ups and downs, the twists and turns, the celebrations of the lighter moments, and the facing and surviving of the darker ones.
Flagship’s singer/guitarist Drake Margolnick and drummer Michael Finster take listeners on such a life journey, from light into darkness and back again, with their latest album, The Electric Man.
The duo sat down with Vinyl Mag prior to their upcoming performance at Shaky Knees this weekend. Here’s what the guys had to share…
Vinyl Mag: I would love to start off by talking about your latest album, The Electric Man. You’ve talked about the album being this journey from light into darkness and back again. How would you personally describe this light and dark?
Michael Finster: For me, it’s just kind of how my life is as of late. Trying to experience the good things while also accepting that bad things will happen too. Seeing the light and not being too distraught if the dark happens.
Drake Margolnick: Being comfortable with the reality of life.
MF: It’s just the principle that there can be light and darkness at the same time. You accept all of it and then you can try to find the peace in that.
VM: I think that’s how life is anyway, it’s this roller coaster of ups and downs and you can’t have the light times without some of the dark times. I think you guys capture it really well on this album; I’ve really enjoyed listening to it. This is your first full length as a Duo. How would you describe your chemistry now as a Duo?
MF: I will say it’s easier to make music with less people. Say you have a band with 6 or 7 people and you want to go to the studio. You are the drummer and you have an idea for a piano part in the song, and you’re like, ‘well I don’t want to go in and try to play the piano part when we already have someone playing the piano.’ Everyone has their part, but as a duo you got more chances.
VM: With the writing of songs and putting them together what does your creative process look like?
DM: It changes often. It’s kind of different for each song. Sometimes I’ll come up with a skeleton of an idea and bring it to Michael and we’ll put it together. That’s kind of how it usually goes, but sometimes we’ll write in a room together if an idea captures our imagination.
MF: It’s always different. For this album we spent time with our producer Joey Waronker We kind of just hung out at his place in LA. I remember we just kind of put a mic in a room and jammed out. We jammed ideas and listened back later to see if there were 5 second snippets that should be expanded upon. There were songs that were premeditated by Drake and there were some that we just kind of built. Some of them were a big hunk and we had to shape them down. And that’s kind of how we approached this record.
DM: And and sometimes ideas come to me in dreams.
VM: There are two songs that really stick out to me from this album. The first being “Midnight,” with a music video with Kate Bosworth in it. I think we can all agree that Kate is an absolute babe. How did that video come about come about? It’s absolutely beautiful; it’s black and white it’s cinematically interesting. How did that all come together?
MF: It was actually our director who put all the ideas together – his name is Michael Polish. We met up with him, and he’s Kate’s husband. We were actually making a few videos at once with him and he kind of surprised us. He mentioned that we’re gonna have a female lead. He didn’t tell us who it was, and then surprised us with Kate. That was a nice surprise. It was great that he orchestrated that. In the video we went around town, kind of guerrilla style, very minimalistic, and filmed everything. It was from his brain, so we owe a lot to him in that respect.
VM: I think the video came out really great. The other song that sticks out to me from this album and I can really personally relate to is “Burn It Up.” I just really like it and it sums up this album; as you said, going from the light to the dark, and in this song finally getting fed up with the dark and just moving forward. Where did the inspiration come from for “Burn It Up?”
DM: I wrote that song a long time ago. I wrote it when I was watching one of my best friend’s families kind of fall apart, to be honest. It was a very important family to me, and it was very interesting to just watch them fall a part. I kind of wrote it for them, thinking, ‘it’s ok, you just need to move on.’
VM: I think it’s just a absolute great song. Now, you guys are based out of Charlotte, and Charlotte isn’t too far from Atlanta, where you’ll be heading this weekend for Shaky Knees. Is there anything you are looking forward to doing in Atlanta or any artists you are looking forward to seeing at Shaky Knees?
DM: We really like Atlanta. We actually made our first full length album there and that was really my first time spending time in Atlanta. We have a lot of cool friends there and we have gotten to know the city a bit. There are definetely a few restaurants we want to re-visit.
MF: We’re all going to be at Shaky Knees, so we’ll all get the opportunity to see some really incredible bands.
DM: I’m really looking forward to seeing Ryan Adams. I’ve never gotten to see him live so I’m really looking forward to that.
Flagship is set to play Shaky Knees this Saturday at 12:00PM EST on the main stage, Peachtree.
Last weekend we were shakin’ our beats. This weekend we’ll be shakin’ our knees.
In its fifth year, Shaky Knees returns to Centennial Park in Atlanta, GA, for three days and nights of the finest indie rock acts around. Topping the lineup are the likes of LCD Soundsystem, The xx, and Phoenix.
This year’s stellar lineup also includes: Cage the Elephant, Pixies, The Shins, Nick Murphy (fka Chet Faker), Ryan Adams, Third Eye Blind, Portugal. The Man, Sylvan Esso, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Shovels and Rope, Bleachers, Warpaint, Car Seat Headrest, and many, many more.
We only have three more days until the weekend. To help get you through the rest of the week, check out a few of VM’s favorite tracks from some of this year’s Shaky Knees’ artists.
GA 3-day passes are still available, as well as some late-night shows. Don’t miss out!
1. Home State Festival
Our roots are deeply grounded in the great state of Georgia. So when there is a festival of this size and quality in the heart of one of our favorite cities, we just have to show our love. Atlanta is known for many things – as of late it may be the collapsing of highways and MARTA catching on fire – but there is no denying this city knows how to host a music festival or two.
2. Centennial Park
Shaky Beats returned to Centennial Olympic Park in the heart of Atlanta, GA, for its second year. With a line-up boasting the likes of The Chainsmokers, Kaskade, GRiZ, Bonobo, Flosstradamus, Zeds Dead, Galantis, RL Grime, Gramatik, the return of Girl Talk, and many more, this year’s fest certainly did not disappoint.
If you are familiar with Centennial Park when there’s not a festival occupying the park, the idea of a loud, electronic focused festival with three stages may raise some skepticism. We were anticipating unbearable hoards of attendees packed into the park and awful noise bleed from the stages. We were met with neither. Sure it was crowded, of course, but nothing insufferable, and no noise bleeding. That’s a win for us.
3. Gramatik
Gramatik is just one of those artists we are always happy to see on a lineup. With a Gramatik set, you know you’re always going to have a funky energetic time. We couldn’t stop shakin’ our beats throughout the late afternoon performance. Gramatik was absolutely one of our favorite sets from Day 2 at Shaky Beats.
4. Slushii
That hair. That jersey. Those bright colors. That Slushii cartoon. We loved it. This was our first time seeing Slushii (Julian Scanlan) live. Not only is he known for his work with artists such as Marshmello and Skrillex, Scanlan also puts on one hell of a show.
5. The Chainsmokers
There is no denying it, we’re fans. The Chainsmokers‘ set was everything we wanted it to be and definetely how we wanted to end our Shaky Beats weekend. All of our favorite anthemic songs were played and Centennial was absolutely alive with sing-a-longs Sunday night. Each time we’ve seen The Chainsmokers, their performance just gets bigger and better.