The complexity and breadth of the sequence of events that brought you here is, quite frankly, a staggering collision of chaos and chance – and yet there will undoubtedly a natural, almost serendipitous, inevitability that you couldn’t really be anywhere else but here right now, it was always going to happen.

That’s what Night Works make you realize about life; you can control it to a degree but really, we’re all just rolling along, adrift, un-compassed, just hanging in there… and it’s thrilling.

Formerly a member of British indie stalwarts, Metronomy, Gabriel Stebbing is Night Works, its sole composer and the front man of the live band. Night Works make dance music that has you thinking and beautiful pop music that has you dancing. The debut album, Urban Heat Island (Loose Lips Records), is fresh out and we meet up in a London pub just off of the Old Street roundabout. It’s about as British a pub as you can get; tourists and suits talk loudly as ale is pumped out to fuel the frenzied debates. Sometimes the smell of London really is a pub.

With the release of Urban Heat Island we catch up with Gabriel to discuss the complex path that brought him to Night Works.

Night Works and Urban Heat Island feel as though they’ve been a long time in gestation and that you’ve almost had to fight to get here, having been in a number of bands that have all had some level of fair success. What were the formative points that brought you here?
Firstly I was born and brought up, until 13, in Reading. It’s the market research capital of England, where you get the population to do questionnaires because it’s the most average place in the UK. That’s where I was born.

When I was 14 my mum and step dad moved to Devon and that’s when I was really getting into music. I self-taught myself guitar because we moved from a town, where I knew people and had friends, to literally the middle of nowhere where I knew no one and there was this guitar I had but had never touched before. If I hadn’t moved to the South West of England and the middle of fucking nowhere, there’s no way I would have bothered to have picked up the guitar and taught myself.

So step one, I’m totally taken out of my comfort zone and my companion is my guitar.

Step two, I have this theory that young men who are born in Britain with brown hair think that they can be in a band and think that they can write songs. Your aspiration options in Britain are that you could maybe be a footballer or in a band.

So I thought I could be in the next Beatles. At school I met Joe Mount (Metronomy) and we started a band called the Upsides. We were a completely trad combo, guitar bass, drums, we did cover versions and wrote our own songs and it was ridiculous, but it was great.

Then I move to Brighton for University and Joe shortly joins me. This becomes the Customers, which becomes, for Joe and I, Metronomy. Joe had always done Metronomy and I was the only bassist he knew then, I think. Metronomy scoops me up and explodes the horizons.

So it must have been really hard to say goodbye to Metronomy?
It was a huge decision. I think it was partly made because I’d been working on my own band at the time, Your Twenties. The other people in Your Twenties were like “we should do this”, but ultimately Your Twenties contained three musicians other than myself who were each in bands of their own. So Your Twenties couldn’t quite contain that and the band went its separate ways, but my writing continued. As the writing continued it became less and less like Your Twenties and more like something else. The songs became slower and a bit more expansive, more reflective and the idea of London became a focus.

So Urban Heat Island is a love letter to London?
It’s maybe a product of making music and writing and living in London and the amount of money and ambition you rub up against. Night Works is a reflection on a sense of pressure and intensity that you get from living in London and trying to do something in London. It’s a really tough and unforgiving place at times and these songs were being written at the same time as the financial collapse was unfolding. I was mesmerized and actually inspired by the public drama that was playing out in close proximity to me, geographically.

With these experiences you outline and the strong, almost marketing-inspired, visual identity of your artwork, is it fair to think of Night Works as a project for you more than a band?
Well Your Twenties felt like a band to the degree that it was as though we all wanted to get back to what it felt like when you were in a band as teenagers. Night Works the live band feels as much of a band as any band I’ve been in, but the genesis of the band, with the music, there’s a thread I used to draw the songs together; paranoia, psychosis, confidence, the city, money, all of this stuff.

Those are intense themes that are well reflected in the album but there’s more emotional diversity than that.
Absolutely, this is not a full concept album and the whole album is not drawn from that particular well. I found that umbrella interesting and good way to get stuff finished and finessing toward the end. The influences that underlie would have been the same whether the draping had been different. There’s the blue-eyed soul and Prefab Sprout, Steely Dan, euphoric pop and a French touch. Things just bubbled up from my influences over the years, music that I’ve absorbed and regurgitated.

As Night Works has been your main concern throughout your time living in east London, what’s your relationship like with east London these days?
I find east London a place of diminishing returns. When I first moved to east London I was caught up in the excitement of what was happening in Metronomy at the time. I was able to meet a lot of people and make connections and feed off people, but actually I think there’s a tendency in east London to believe or assume a sense of what is important here is important everywhere and anywhere in the world. I find myself less and less enriched by that mentality, I think it’s quite anxiety making actually. I’ve had tons of opportunities by living in the area, but in terms of where I want to go next or what music I want to make in the future or how I want to live my life in the future, I think it would be a difficult place to sustain yourself over a long period of time.

So will the next album be very different?
I really love this album so I want to focus on it for a while, but really I’ve fulfilled a dream I’ve had a since I was a kid; to make an album from start to finish, have a label put it out and sign a publishing deal. I realize that’s maybe becoming slightly anachronistic and the idea is receding. What I want to do next, I want to continue the band and I will, I want to hone the next album. In all honesty I’m terrified about album two now, but I don’t think that emotional response will ever change be it album two or 20.

When talking to HAIM, they giggle as they poke fun of one another, compliment each other on strictly a personal level, and chime in with whoever is speaking, not in a rude way, but more in a ‘finishing each other’s sentences’ kind of way.

Growing up with rock ‘n’ roll friendly parents in California, the band initially began with mom and dad as members, aptly called Rockinhaim, playing Motown and classic rock at charity gigs and street fairs. In 2006 the trio began performing sans parents as the Haim girls. Danielle, Alana, and Este were ready to make their own signature sound. Since then, the girls have found a formula that’s both fresh and nostalgic for many a Millenial — a mix of Stevie Nicks-style soft rock, progressive and poppy up-tempo beats, and that little dash of attitude that has made lady artist’s like Lana Del Ray so appealing.

Don’t let their fun music fool you, however, they’re well-schooled in their craft for a band only in their 20’s. (Danielle has toured with Julian Casablancas and Jenny Lewis, Este received a degree in Ethnomusicology in two years, rather than the usual five, and all are musically inclined in more than one instrument.)

HAIM’s music has that feel of a bunch of teens singing into their hairbrushes before the school dance; it’s got the type of hooks that make you want to drop the top on the convertible and belt out the lyrics. With Twitter shoutouts from Katy Perry and gigs opening for Florence & The Machine, the girls have hit a sweet spot between the indie and pop scenes.

I chatted with HAIM on the phone about their high school experiences, how being sisters affects their music, and what makes music videos so great.

I saw that you DJ’d last night with Bleached in L.A., how’d that go?
Este: It was so good. They’re the best girls. They’re Valley girls, too.

What kind of music did you play?
Este: I pretty much played Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston, and Blackstreet. And I think I also played ‘Bye, Bye, Bye’, ‘cause it was last call.

What was high school like for you, especially playing in your family band? Were you popular because of your talent?
Danielle: High school was weird. I think it was weird for everyone. We went to an arts high school called L.A. County High School of the Arts. I was in the opera department, which was like the nerdiest out of everyone. It was weird in my high school, because it was an arts school, so like, the visual artists were the cool kids, then it was the theater kids, then after the theater kids were the dancers, then the jazz musicians, then it was orchestra, then it was opera. We were bottom of the fucking food chain. But then in my senior year of high school, Julian Casablancas asked me to go on tour with him. It was the last two weeks of high school when I came back. I got some major cool points those last two weeks; it was definitely like a

Can’t Find Me Love

moment. Even then though, I wasn’t even that popular, people just looked at me more.

When I was in middle school and high school I didn’t really get along with my sister. But then when I went to college we became best friends. Now she lives on my couch, rent-free. Have you guys ever been through something like that with each other?
Alana: I don’t really understand why this is, but me, Este and Danielle have always been best friends. And I feel like it’s cheesy saying that, like people don’t believe me when I say it. They think it’s because we are in a band or some PR bullshit. Of course we fight, you always have fights with your sisters, like ‘Who wore my shirt?’ or ‘Why are you in my room?’ But other than that, we’ve really never fought. We’ve always been best friends. People know us as a trifecta, and it’s weird when we’re not all together.

Can you communicate solely on vibes? Like ESP?
Danielle: It’s a sister thing that only sisters know. I know exactly what Este is going to do before she does it. I can see her mind working. But that doesn’t mean I can change it. But I definitely know what she’s thinking. If you dare Este to do something, she’ll do it.
Este: I can’t go back on a dare, I can’t.
Danielle: So I’m constantly looking at Este, waiting for her to do a weird move.

I was first introduced to you guys because an acquaintance of mine directed the music video for “Forever” and posted it on his Facebook. I was so into the Destiny’s Child lunge dip move at the hair salon. If you three were Destiny’s Child, who would be Beyoncé?
Alana: I think Este’s definitely Beyoncé. If you were ever in a dance battle with Este, you’re going to lose, it doesn’t matter who you are. Like a dance battle between her and Beyoncé? I don’t know who would win. She’s that good. I think Danielle should be Michelle because Michelle is kind of the mysterious one. And Kelly is kind of the down girl. So yeah, I think Danielle is Michelle and I’m Kelly.

Also, it seems like you guys have some serious basketball skills in your “Don’t Save Me” video. It reminded me a bit of Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” when she’s sitting and singing with the basketball, much tougher though.
Este: We grew up loving music videos, and we loved Making The Video – it was our favorite show on MTV. Back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, music videos were crazy, it was like an art. Now there are crazy music videos, but I think in that era you actually waited to watch the video. You talked about the video and there would be this big revealing. Now MTV doesn’t even play music videos anymore, except for in between credits. Even TRL chops down all the videos. But music videos are my favorite thing about bands, it’s where you see what their vibe is and how creative they are. We were just so inspired by everything from that era – our videos act as an homage to our favorites, like Britney Spears and Destiny’s Child.

What’s HAIM’s spirit animal as a band?
Alana: I feel like we are a wolf pack. An albino wolf pack.

Where do you see HAIM in five years?
Alana: In five years I hope that we’re touring and playing music and putting out records. It’s what we wanted our whole lives. There was never talk of going solo or going off with other bands, or being a chemist or a doctor. And I don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re doing something right, so we’re going to keep doing it.

For the first installment in an as-yet-untitled segment, we asked Rachel to tell us her favorite things about her favorite place: in this case, Stromboli. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, here’s how Rachel spent her days while basking in the Southern Italian sun.

The volcano:
Stromboli is an active volcano and you can climb pretty close to the top and watch the lava flowing into the ocean. They give you a hardhat in case you get blown to Napoli. Some people are put off by the volcano and the constant low rumbling noises but I find it weirdly comforting because the island isn’t deathly quiet at night.

Accommodation:
I don’t know the hotels there. My friends said I could have their place to myself, I don’t know what I was expecting but when I got there I discovered it was a weird little cabin with no door and no running water.  I didn’t sleep the first night because I thought someone would walk in at any moment, but in the end it was okay.

Il Canneto:
My favorite restaurant in the world is Il Canneto. Every single thing I’ve eaten there has been the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Sometimes I fantasize about flying to Stromboli just to have a fresh granita at Il Canneto.

The piazza:
Sometimes they set up a screen in the piazza and show classic films, and occasionally there are improvised football matches (played barefoot).

Black sand beaches:
The beaches in Stromboli are made of black sand from the lava fragments.  The water is warm because of the volcanic currents. Lots of jellyfish though. The first time I got stung I thought it was fatal. No one told me you could survive a jellyfish sting so I overreacted on the beach a little bit.

Take “Big Changes”, for instance, one of the more immediately likeable tracks on the album. Over fat synth stabs that might very well be a sample of “Dr. Beat” by Miami Sound System, Callan croons from atop a wave of shimmering drum beats. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it’s really unlike anything being released right now. It’s not trying to be a 12-minute pysch jam just because, or trying to sound intentionally lo-fi. When the beat finally does drop and the track evolves into a techno freak-out, not unlike every top 40 pop song in rotation right now, it somehow feels completely in place, yet unexpected.

I met up with Lemonade at Maggie Brown’s in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, a few blocks away from the studio
where they recorded Diver. They had a lot to talk about – especially given their first headlining show in a long time, which was a few days earlier at Music Hall of Williamsburg. They seemed both confident and excited about the future, and I couldn’t blame them. Time will tell, but Diver may very well be the dance record of 2012.

I stupidly missed your show last week, but I think literally everyone on my Instagram feed was there, so I feel like I experienced it vicariously. It was your first big show with the new record, right?
Ben: Yeah, it was the record release show. It was the first headlining show we’d done in a really long time. We played at Terminal 5 last month but that wasn’t our deal.
Callan: I mean, it was kind of our first big show. We played once before, but it was for a party. This one was our show. (Pauses) Sorry, I took a Klonopin (laughs). Is it Klonopin or Kolon-opin?

I think it’s Klonopin. K-L.
Callan: I think that’s better, because Kolon-opin sounds like something—
Ben: —you would take for your colon.
Alex: Anyway, yes, it was the record release show. It was a triple-headliner with Teengirl Fantasy and Elite Gymnastics. I dunno, it felt like our show.

How did people react to all the new material?
Alex: Great.
Callan: It was really the best crowd I feel like we’ve played to in five years.
Alex: If we can do that across the country and/or world, we’re gonna be fine (laughs).
Callan: I will have no reason to feel sad (laughs).
Alex: The album came out, and nothing really happened, so it was the first time that it felt rewarding, like, ‘Great, there are people singing along.’ People were dancing, people lost their shit. It was awesome.

Can you walk me through the genesis of Diver? I know you guys took a hiatus between the first album and this one. I feel like your sound evolved a bit as well. I saw [True Panther label head] Dean [Bein] a few weeks ago and he was telling me how you had scrapped a previous album?
Callan: I’m not sure if that’s exactly what he meant. We just had a ton of stuff. We had been playing a live set – like for example on the Delorean tour we were playing a live set, almost none of which made it on this album. We were more sprawling madness, and I think it was pretty beautiful in its own regard, but it just didn’t feel like we were evolving anywhere.
Ben: For what it’s worth, beyond scrapping tons of ideas, we also scrapped some songs that had a pretty long life in their own regard. And that’s fine. If you actually take into account the time span, it’s not that shocking of a transformation, at least to us. Our first album came out in 2008, which means it was written in 2006 and 2007, and then we just took a really long time. We made the Pure Moods EP [True Panther Sounds, 2010], which could surely be looked at as transitional. I dunno, it doesn’t feel like we took time off, as much as we did say, ‘We’re gonna make a record now.’ It doesn’t feel nearly as conscious.
Callan: Well, for what it’s worth, we did refuse shows for a long period of time. It wasn’t a declared hiatus, but we were not a functional band for almost a year – since the Delorean tour to when we started making this album.
Alex: Right, that was the November before last. So probably from January a year and a half ago, until just after we recorded the record we didn’t play shows. We were just focusing on the ideas that we had, and it took a long time to narrow the process and pick the songs we were going to use.

Dean was also telling me that Callan took vocal lessons during the recording of the album to improve his delivery. I was really interested in that, because I feel like a lot of indie dance music and indie pop music is only dance and pop in a very loose sense. I almost feel like a lot of it is more experimental music in a way. And I loved the idea of Lemonade being like, ‘No, we’re actually going to be really musically proficient while doing this.’ That’s actually not a very widespread idea right now, when you think about it.
Ben: Okay, I am going to try and wrap my head around what you just said (laughs). We held ourselves up to a standard. In a way, a lot of bands that might come out saying they’re influenced by radio, Top 40 pop music, or even just underground dance music, might not actually attempt to achieve that standard. Call it professionalism, whatever.
Alex: Or how a band could come out entirely in the press and be associated with K-pop, but their music doesn’t reflect that at all.
Callan: I just don’t personally see taking pop music and deconstructing it, and making it tongue-in-cheek, as being a difficult thing to do, or in any way challenging to yourself as a musician. I don’t see it as being some fucking milestone of our generation that we all need to be really proud of. Like, ‘Wow, we learned not to believe in anything! We learned not to believe in our own songwriting, and not to write sincere music!’ We could have done that too! Pure Moods had tons of that sort of stuff on it. It was just this sort of kooky mid-point in our career, and yeah, we were kind of in that same boat. It’s almost this thing like you’re ironically mocking pop music, and laughing at it. And it’s like, step up to
the fucking plate! Can you fucking pull that off? You want to tell me that someone like Enrique Iglesias is so cheesy, but then like when you listen to his songs, you’re like, ‘Man, he’s communicating emotions so much more sincerely.’ Whether his songs were written by someone else or not, they’re so much more sincere than some assholes from college with a bunch of fucking delay pedals, thinking they’re so fucking awesome. They’re fucking hiding. It’s a generation of people hiding. No one’s coming out. Like, I understand that big Eurodance pop songs are cheesy and stupid, but it’s fine, because after the last 10 years, listening to that shit makes me realize that it’s so fucking beautiful to sing those words, and sing them passionately. When I listen to someone like Stevie B, this Latin dude singing with all of his heart, it’s so much bolder and stronger. Stevie B was way more fucking popular than any of this indie shit is ever going to be. He lasted way longer. But it’s not about hating indie music. It’s about not looking down on people who are willing to share themselves and go for it. We wanted to be proficient. Technically, Ben and Alex are musicians. They’re not faking it. I was fucking faking it. I was a bad singer, and I wasn’t even really trying. I had a bunch of delay pedals and I thought it was awesome. And it was cool, we used to go out and smash a bunch of balloons, people would grab percussion from off the stage and bang on them and stuff. That was cool and exciting, but it was also like, 2007, you know? We’ve come a long way since then.
Alex [to ’SUP]: Well, you were asking if we were trying to step up our musicianship, instead of trying to subsist on hype. It would be way easier to be aggressive and have something to associate yourself with in the press. Then you kind of live off that hype.

I mean, I have nothing against hype. I have nothing against derivative music. I don’t really have anything against irony. I don’t abhor those concepts as such. I just love pop music, and I take pop music very seriously, and it just irks me when it’s taken out of context. Like, I consider ABC to be a pop band, for example. And not to take anything away from bands that aren’t ABC, but it’s like me playing a saxophone all weird for 20 minutes and being like, ‘I’m playing jazz music.’ No, you’re not. You’re playing the saxophone, and that’s great, but it’s not jazz music.
Ben: Hold on, just to get this right: Trevor Horn’s ABC or Another Bad Creation (laughs)?

(Laughing) Trevor Horn! Martin Fry! The ABC from Sheffield in the ’80s! Although Another Bad Creation would have worked as well.
Alex: Thank God, because I immediately thought you meant Another Bad Creation.
Callan: I actually don’t have a problem with irony or tongue-in-cheek stuff either, really. I actually quite enjoy a lot of it. I feel like I made decisions like that in the past because I lacked the skills. As far as the training and taking vocal lessons, I actually did take four, and the reason that I did it was kind of funny, actually. I was just having trouble singing well, like I was doing something fundamentally wrong. Then – this is kind of embarrassing – I read something about Drake taking a bunch of vocal lessons, and I actually listened to his first stuff, and it was really nasal singing with pitch-correction, and now he has a little bit more control and he sounds better. I could actually hear his progression, so I was like, ‘Huh, I’m kind of nasal, maybe I could progress in the exact same way.’ But I only took four because I don’t have any money (laughs).

That’s still a step above what most bands do.
Callan: Or what they say they do.

Well, beyond the tongue-in-cheek-ness we were just talking about, there’s also this idea that irony is actually a form of sincerity. You know, ‘This is what I naturally sound like, therefore this is real, so why would I change that?’
Alex: If you’re a writer, you’re not going to be like, ‘I’m not going to school, this is how I naturally write!’
Callan: Also for what it’s worth, it’s not like my singing was a point of shame. I did think to myself consciously, ‘It would be so tight if I could really sing.’ Especially where we come from, and our musical inspirations – sure, we listen to music that showcases certain ineptitudes, like no-wave bands and stuff like that. That’s super exciting to me, and I’ve always loved that, but at the same time, we’ve been listening to dance music, and club music. Like, really into it. And it’s kind of cool when someone makes a DIY dance record and they have someone who can’t really sing on it – that’s kind of cool. But it’s really awesome when someone soulfully and passionately belts. That, to me, is so inspiring. I get chills when I hear a singer belt. I find more inspiration in female vocalists, usually.
Alex [to ’SUP]: I guess I didn’t mean ‘solely based on hype.’ I guess I meant to say, like you said, taking it seriously. I think there’s this idea that being a raw artist is so naturally inspired and talented that you don’t have to work at it. I just think that’s not true.
Ben: Well, sometimes it is true! Time will tell.
Alex: Time will tell, but I don’t like the idea of people becoming artists, thinking ‘Oh, this is me, I don’t have to work at it. People are just going to discover my brilliance (laughs).’
Callan: Well, that’s its own thing too. I guess there are a lot of people making indie dance music these days, and experimenting with techno and house and stuff. We’ve kind of been doing that a bit longer than a lot of people. I’ve kind of realized, like when went to Sonar to DJ, it was like, ‘Okay, we better kick it up to the biggest tune we have to get these people dancing.’ That’s not selling out, or anything. You become excited by the prospect of making people dance, and for me it became more inspiring than making something for somebody who doesn’t dance at all to sit around and talk about. That’s not what it’s about for me.

That’s why dance music is so interesting. More so than any other genre, it has to elicit an emotional response. The whole point is to get people to dance. That’s why it exists.
Callan: It’s about catharsis too. It’s a release.

It also speaks to why the divide between good dance music and bad dance music is so wide. You know immediately if you’re into it or not. You can listen to a folk record or something 15 times and then form an opinion, whereas a dance track has until the chorus to hook you, or you’re out.
Callan: Yeah. I dunno, there are a lot of things we’ve done that I’m happy with, and a lot of things I’m not happy with that we’ve done. But it’s important to me that we don’t just make a fucking record that you can put on really low
at your office and have it fade into the background. It has to be arresting to some extent.

In the beginning, it had to be jarring, and now it just has to be the sort of thing you can’t passively listen to. I love how jam-packed with different genres Diver is. There are obviously a lot of ’80s and ’90s dance influences, but also tropicália, a lot of techno, even some grime with “Infinite Style” and R&B with “Eye Drops”.
Ben: We listened to all of those genres while making the record. Really, what it comes down to is that we used to make tracks where we’d sit down and try to emulate this genre or that genre. We don’t really do that anymore.
Alex: And “Enya Grime” would be the working title.
Ben: It got to the point that we were writing so much and we were getting better at it, so it stopped being about choosing a genre and jumping into a track. [But Diver] is just really reflective of our tastes. It’s funny you should bring up grime because that’s totally there. If you listen to “Eye Drops”, it feels like an R&B ballad, but if you actually just took out the drums, it’s like a rip off of a Wiley beat. Like, it’s a grime track (laughs). So, it’s just all internalized at this point. When we write, I really do feel like, I don’t want to sound too douchey about it, but we’ve internalized all this dance music and we write songs with whatever elements work for us. Particularly with the album, besides pretty much the entire gamut of contemporary dance music, we listened to a lot of pop music from the ’80s and ’90s. It comes out more in the textures, I think. The beats and the heaviness come from modern dance music, and a lot of the textural elements —
Alex: Our choice of synths —
Ben: Yeah, the synths, come from pop music. It was really important that it was not a retro-sounding record. We wanted it to sound totally modern. I think that using sounds from the past can simply just be an emotional signifier. Like, you’ll hear those presets from famous synthesizers of the past 25 years. We straight up used the Korg M1, which was the workhorse of the music industry in the early ’90s. My dad was in a Top 40 band and he had one! We used a lot of presets from that, because they elicit a response of, ‘Oh, this sounds like pop music from the ’90s.’ Then we tried to incorporate that into framework that isn’t just retro.

The album does sounds like a really well-balanced mix of all these genres. You’re using all these references that I feel like people wouldn’t necessarily put on the same record, and on Diver a lot of the time they’re in the same song.
Ben: That sort of ‘no rules, no boundaries’ thing has been present in our band since day one. Before it was all just smashed on top of each other in a really abrasive way, but it was still there.
Alex: Our production has gotten a lot better. Whereas before I was really obsessed with Arab music and North African, Turkish, and Middle Eastern music in general, for a good four years of my life. So we’d have a dance track that was a straight-up rip-off of a Rachid Taha sample, and then threw some house over it and put some vocals on it. Now, we’ve found a way to make everything fit. It’s like if you’re mixing a record, you might not put a bass line and the kick over the same frequency because they’re going to cancel each other out. You have to find some way for each thing to sit in the mix.
Callan: Also, I don’t know if we really accomplished this, but I don’t think people realize how little difference there is in our influences. New age, or grime, or techno, latin music, this stuff has all happened before. Tribal techno in the ’90s, that had tropical, funky beats. Funky house with new age tones. I mean, this has all happened over and over again so many times. But, coming from an indie rock perspective, it seems like we’re trying to throw a bunch of crazy shit in the blender, but the reality is this stuff is all—
Alex: It’s a modern interpretation.
Callan: But even when you listen to old R&B tracks, from the late ’80s and etarly ’90s, tracks that I really like, you hear a lot of dub elements, you hear a lot of production tricks that people use now, who have been making indie rock forever. You hear innovations in depth and layering and texture. It’s in dance music, it’s in pop music, but it’s not in a lot of indie rock.
Alex: I listened to a Terror Danjah track, one of those Rhythm N Grime tracks, and it sounded like “Softkiss”. It wasn’t as 2-steppy, but it had similar synths and fading synths. It has female vocals, but it sounded a lot alike.

Music genres definitely cycle like that. When you look at Top 40 pop right now, like Rihanna, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, it’s all just Ibiza Eurotrash music from 1997. I mean, it’s the exact same synths, beats, everything. At the time that type of cheesy European dance music was extremely vilified, whereas now it’s the biggest, most accepted form of music. Has there been a Top 40 pop hit in the past two years that hasn’t had crazy distorted synths stabs and techno effects? It’s insane!
Ben: It’s very European, but it finally happened here. Hip-hop finally became okay with letting house producers start tearing their shit up.
Alex: The world has been doing the same thing, America just caught on. Or now that the indie press has caught on to all of these producers. Some of the references blow my mind, like when the indie press will appreciate an electronic track, I feel like they’re almost trying to be edgy. Okay, Pitchfork gives Avicii a really good review, but then they compare it to the Field!
Callan: I hadn’t read that, but that makes me want to vomit.
Alex: They obviously have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about. Like, ‘Come on, dude, that’s your reference point?’ I mean, there are obviously people in the States who review electronic music who know what they’re talking about—
Ben: But also, [Pitchfork] know who their audience is.
Alex: True.
Ben: That in particular – and maybe we shouldn’t get too into this (laughs) – but I mean, I get why he would throw the Field in as a reference point. He’s trying to sell a track to a lot of readers who might be scared of big room electronic music. They’ll just be like, ‘Oh, that’s lame.’ But by comparing it to somebody who they like, he’s inviting them to try it out and see if they like it. I can respect that. It’s just not for us. That world is not for us. And that’s really the end of it.
Callan: You’re right; it’s really not for us. It’s just kind of sad that (pauses) that’s the world we’re sort of thrown into. I don’t really know how to get out.
Alex: Well, I understand why we’re in it, because we’re in a band. When we play live, we have a singer, a synth player, and a drummer.

On the other hand though, I loved the mix you guys just did for XLR8R.com. I loved that in the intro they were like, ‘We never ask bands to do these mixes for us, but Lemonade are a band that we feel fit within this category.’
Ben: Yeah, that was super kind of them. We read XLR8R, and they have so many good people do those mixes. It’s great company to be in.
Callan: Their podcasts are like, 30 percent exclusive tracks. Other DJs go to them to be like, ‘Holy shit, all these obscure tracks are right here.’ We didn’t really try to do that, even though we could have asked our friends for a bunch of exclusives. We just tried to make a podcast that could kind of correlate to the album that we made.
Alex: Timing-wise, it also came out right before we got some remixes back.
Callan: I was hoping to kind of contextualize the album a little bit.
Ben: I think we were all really happy with how it came out. Sometimes you do those podcasts and you’re kind of like, ‘Eh, that was cool.’ If anything, I hope it maybe does help contextualize the album. It was basically what we listen to in the van on tour, 75 to 90 percent of the time. Every now and then someone throws on Pearl Jam and we all sing along, but that’s really the sound of what we’re listening to (laughs).

Much like BEAK>’s earlier, self-titled LP (Invada, 2012), >> is a fluid amalgamation of droopy, drone-y basslines, ghostly vocals, and the sort of noise construction that can only come from years of studying the essence of sound. It’s really quite a remarkable achievement.

In anticipation of BEAK>’s February 10th show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York (tickets here) we caught up with Geoff for a quick transatlantic chat about the life of the project, his views on musicianship, and, you know, mackerel. At the end of the interview, he toasted me through his computer monitor with a frothy bottle of lager. My kind of guy.

What was the idea that first started BEAK>?
I run the Invada label in Bristol, and the guys that are in BEAK> were signed to that label in other bands. We had a Christmas party in 2008, and we did this thing called the Invada acid test, where we all have to get together and jam. All the different bands together, because I like the idea of a community based in a label. Then Matt was playing like, clarinet or something, and Billy was playing bass on the drums, and we just kind of had a laugh. Afterwards we just kind of said, you know, ‘That was good fun, let’s do it again some other time.’ It wasn’t supposed to be a record or anything – we went into my studio, set up the equipment, and the first thing that we ever played together is the exact first album. There was no big mixing, no production, just a jam, really. I suppose we’re just trying to come up with interesting music.

What’s the ideal mental and/or physical state to listen to BEAK>’s music in?
(Pause) We’re usually quite drunk when we play it. (Another pause) I don’t know, really! If you want to take enhancements, that’s great. Mackerel.

Mackerel.
Yeah, we’re all on mackerel. It’s brain food, you know. It’s good, cheap fish.

(Laughs) It’s funny you should say that you guys are drunk onstage because I’ve seen you a bunch of times and it seems like such a precise performance.  I personally would never be able to accomplish that while inebriated.
I think we can only create it when we’re drunk (laughs).

Have you found the perfect sound? Do you think such a sound exists?
No, there are so many different sounds in the world. Matt comes up with some cool sounds, I must say. He can create just these incredible soundbeds and stuff. I am envious of his ability to create noise. It’s discordant but beautiful. He doesn’t do it much with BEAK>, more with his other projects. But yeah, I admire his noise.

That’s quite a compliment to pay a man.
Yeah.

‘Discordant but beautiful’ is quite a powerful phrase, because that’s really what strikes me with BEAK>; that’s exactly what it is. When you listen to the new record, you know, the first track sounds like an ambulance coming to visit your house because you’ve had a horrible accident of some kind, but in another way, it doesn’t. It sounds like music, it doesn’t sound like noise.
It’s weird, because even music that’s supposed to be so heavy, from dubstep to whatever, it’s all tremendously in tune. It’s all tremendously designed. And great music – I mean, it is tremendously designed, but sometimes the mistakes, things being out of tune, things like that – basically, if you look at someone who’s so beautiful, and they have no imperfections in their face, it’s weird. Beauty is made from imperfections. To me, that’s what all great bands have. Imperfections that make them special. It’s the tonality between, oh,  I don’t know, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney and his bass. You don’t really get stuff that’s out of tune nowadays. You get that sounds with those old Stax bands and reggae bands. The guitarist would be really out of tune, but it gives it this tonality and makes it unique. That’s what I mainly get off on with sound, really. Now, you don’t get that so much.

Isn’t that why everyone is clamoring to go back to vinyl, and all of these bands are fetishizing analog equipment and stuff? People want to hold on to that more organic sound.
Yeah, organic’s fine, as long as you’re not precious about it. I don’t care what music is made on, even though I bang on about the laptop kids. It’s about the tune that comes out at the end of the day. Technology has given a lot more people a lot more opportunity to record, whereas it used to be just people who had money, or you had to work really hard to save up for an electrical guitar or whatever.

It does make you wonder if sometimes there isn’t a little bit too much accessibility, though.
Well yeah, because now people can play at being a musician. They can play at being an artist, they can play at being a filmmaker. You can get Ableton and a Bandcamp page, and that makes you a producer. “I’ve got that box ticked off, so I’m just going to be a filmmaker now, I’ll just film something on my iPhone.” It doesn’t really work that though (laughs).

So other than drinking, what other daily activities influence and contribute to BEAK>?
Well it’s really strange. Not much. We’re very much a non-visual band. None of us are particularly bothered by our visual aesthetic. I think you could put us in a tiny room with all the lights out and it wold still work. [Music] is the main, channelling thing. Matt won’t even listen to the tracks he’s recorded, he just goes and plays Tetris or whatever on this computer. Bill wants to play music, endlessly wants to play music. But the band itself isn’t really affected. Some musicians, especially when they get older, start saying ‘Oh, I need a stream that flows underneath the control room,’ or ‘I need fresh flowers every day,’ or ‘I need this vintage amp hanging from the wall.’ For us, I don’t think it really matters. We’re quite neanderthal about our creative space. When we first made our record, we named it Regressive Rock, you know, it’s not progressive, it’s regressive. In the sense that it didn’t use technology – we’re not trying to be retro, we’re just trying to be as pure and basic as we can.

The encounter happened via photographer Sanna Charles who I play with in the death-folk combo, Sunday Mourning.
No real writers were available so I jumped at the occasion. To be clear, anyone who so much as dabbles in dark, heavy, down-tempo music owes a big debt to Pentagram so this is no small deal. The gig was packed, including heads from current giants Electric Wizard and Orange Goblin, while Pentagram churned through classics like “Forever my Queen”, “Sign of the Wolf”, and “Relentless”. Liebling spent the better part of the set looking like a cross between Chucky and a possessed street hustler, with his infamous daze rendered even more menacing after many years of rock ‘n’ roll and street life. Backstage though, Liebling comes off calm and collected during the interview and is happy to take his time to lay it down sweet and slow.

So this is your first time playing in London, what do you have in store for us tonight?
Victor: Some hard fuckin’ rock ‘n’ roll!
Bobby: We’ve got a good mix of old songs from the first, second, and third albums, and beyond, and some newer material from our latest album, Last Rites (Metal Blade Records, 2011). We’re from that era of playing LOUD – it’s a problem sometimes with venues nowadays so I hope they let us do our thing. If the Beatles have played that stage that would really do it for me.

Sorry, I don’t think they have. Any British invasion covers tonight? [They’ve covered the Stones, the Yardbirds and Syd Barrett in the past.] Some wacky outfits maybe?
Bobby: No covers, just Pentagram, we’ll be wearing what we’re wearing now. we’re from back when a band looked like a band, a show was a performance, like the Alice Cooper Band. You play the music but you look a certain way. These days you get a guy on stage in a backwards baseball cap like you’re at a softball game. We’re not as flamboyant as we used to be.
Victor: Like the purple shirt.

Your heritage feels more relevant today than ever, are there any of the young guns that you guys are into?
Victor: Dunno. Not really. There are a few bands in Norway right now like Graveyard that are good and taking off from what we do.
Bobby: There were a few bands in the ’90s like Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine that I like, that’ll probably make a few people cringe, but I don’t really give a shit.

What’s the best part of being here and doing Pentagram 40-odd years later?
Bobby: It’s being here and doing it!
Victor: Yeah, just getting up there and playing. It’s very different now though, there’s not the starved hunger of the
early days, we know what we’re doing now, it’s more of a routine, we still feel it when we do it, but it’s more like eating dinner and less like going hungry.

[This being one of my first face-to-face interviews and being more stoned than prepared – though I’m pretty sure they’d be ok with that – we came up with the idea to have some ‘text in’ questions. Olly Pearson from the cult doom band Moss forgot to text in (probably getting more stoned than prepared) but our friend – a classic-blonde-leather-denim-metal-lovin’-gal – was happy to oblige. She did some research and found out that Bobby’s wife – also a classic-blonde-leather-denim-metal-lovin’-gal – runs her own mini-metal emporium of vintage garb and original designs. It’s also claimed that Bobby Liebling is a bit of a muse.]

A good friend of mine has just texted me to ask: ‘What do you guys do in your day-to-day lives?’
Bobby: Just normal shit… People would be surprised but we all have wives and kids and we just get on with it.
Victor: I work on bikes quite a lot. Motorcycles, but yeah, I’m married with children.

You guys are functional!?
Bobby (laughs): I came from the wrong side of tracks at the wrong time. I’ve come from far. I’ve broken the seven cardinal sins and more – and I really mean that. I was in bands since I was 10 years old. I was shooting up for 40 years, on crack for 27 years. I owe my wife and soulmate so much, I came full circle thanks to and for her, and I became clean. I have one single tattoo on my body, my wife’s name [he shows us the ‘Hailey’ tattoo across his heart].

Bless. are you worried of a potential doomsday in 2012?
Victor: I hope not and I pray that it won’t happen. I’m a profoundly spiritual person. What a lot of people don’t understand is that a Pentagram is a symbol of faith. We always thought it was a bold name, and we flipped it round for the image, but in a way we often wrote about warnings – “Day of Reckoning”, “Be Forewarned”, “Review Your Choices”.

You didn’t really want to be singer when you were a little boy, did you?
Back then I wanted to be a pilot. Because I would say I was a bright youth and very forward in my schoolwork. I didn’t want to be a singer – that wasn’t my intention at all.

Yet in 1966 you impressed reggae’s most famous producer, Coxsone Dodd, and his musical director Jackie Mittoo at Studio 1 on Brentford Road, at only age 12.
It was a coincidence. I followed two of my classmates to Studio 1. They were rehearsing and preparing for recording. But after their audition I was standing by at the side when Jackie Mittoo looked at me and said I must sing him a song. So I sang and he told me to come back and record my first song and my friends to go home and rehearse! I recorded that song under my own name, as Earl Lowe.

That song “I’m Going To Cool It”, was written by your brother, Campbell. How did you start writing songs?
I would say I come from a musical family. I used to represent my school, St. Francis Primary, in poetry and they would send me to Mico College to do poetry there. I would also represent my school going to JBC and doing a program called Jamaica Educational Television about science and other things. So maybe all these things inspired me to start writing. That was triggered inside of me.

Two years after that single you impressed Coxsone’s rival Prince Buster and started releasing as Little Roy.
After I recorded for Coxsone I stopped recording again because it wasn’t really my interest. With Prince Buster it was my friends telling me I should keep singing. Sometimes after we played football I would be singing to my friends and they would say how good I sounded and that I should record for Buster because he was just across from the football field.

Your first big hit came with “Bongo Nyah” for Lloyd Matador Daley in 1969, backed by Aston and Carlton Barrett, who went on to the rhythm section for the Wailers. How did you meet Matador?
He was on my way home from school and me and my friends used to pass there because I used to do a lot of walking up Welton Park Road, and my school, St. Andrew Technical, was on Spanish Town Road. I used to walk past his place and it was coincidental again for me to stop in his place and say I had a song. In Jamaica there were just two radio stations – JBC and RJR. So you would come home and hear your song playing on both stations and know it was a hit that went to number one for at least six weeks on each. Sometimes it would be playing on both stations at the same time. “Bongo Nyah” was a very big hit for me. I would say it’s the foundation of Little Roy.

It was one of the first successful overtly Rastafarian reggae songs.
Yes it is, because it was the first hit song to sing with that kind of title and that kind of subject – of Rasta, Baldhead, Pork Eater and all those kinds of things. You had songs by Monty Morris, “The Lion Of Judah Will Break Every Chain”, but these were more chants, Rasta chants, not an original written song.

You and a friend set up your Tafari label 1974 and recorded some of your most influential songs like “Tribal War” which was recorded at Lee Perry’s Black Ark studio. How did you meet Scratch?
Yes, that was the label that I started with my friend Maurice Jackson. We did “Prophecy” and then we did “Tribal War”. Those two songs were blessed. I had done one song for Lee Perry, which was called “Don’t Cross The Nation” in 1970. We were all living in Washington Gardens because a lot of artists lived in Washington Gardens. There was Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths, and Lee “Scratch” Perry, who was about two doors away from me. Prince Buster was just down the road. Niney the Observer, Max Romeo, Bunny Wailer, and Bob and Peter Tosh were in Washington Gardens a lot because they all used to sing for Scratch Perry. These people, I would say, were the foundation of the business.

During the ’70s you were a member of the 12 Tribes Of Israel Rastafarian organization, but you left in 1979.
I think the leader, they called him Carrington Gadd, was a fraud. That’s how I saw it and in the end a lot of people got to see he was a fraud. But I saw it early. I sang two songs for the 12 Tribes Of Israel – one called, “Golden Streets Of Zion” and then another called, “My Religion”. I compiled an album that Bob Marley was going to release on his company Tuff Gong but they said I shouldn’t have anything to do with Bob and they were going to deal with it. So I took those songs back from Bob, gave it to them and in two to three years they still hadn’t done anything with them. But I still had a tape of those songs, so in the end, in about 1979-80, after Freddie McGregor sang my song “Prophecy”, I released those songs on an album called Little Roy Prophesy (Tafari, 1989).

You left Jamaica in the early ’80s for America and then London. Why?
It was ordained for me to leave. I was getting a lot of fight over my own songs. I had some great songs like “Tribal War” and “Prophecy” and these songs were recorded just after I left high school. In Jamaica you have this payola system, and these producers and companies suppressed what I was doing because they would prefer those songs to be on their label. I was not an artist who was going around to sing for any producer. I produced myself, and I had something going for myself. I would write, sing and produce as a young youth. So these producers would pay the radio stations not to play Little Roy, to keep me out of the business, because my songs were strong. So I had to get away from that. But there wasn’t much happening for me musically in America and I knew that England was an opening to all of Europe and when it came to my type of songs they were more accepted in this part of the world. So I made the decision to be here.

You didn’t want to be a singer in the first place. Did you think of quitting the business altogether?
No, because the songs I recorded by then were so great and I had come with so many – “Bongo Nyah”, “Tribal War”, “Prophecy”, “Christopher Columbus”, “Jah Can Count On I”, “Longtime Rocksteady” – that I had to stay in the business. There was no artist I could say back then was much greater than me. I saw myself as one of the greats and my songs were great.

One of the decisions you made since settling in England is to stop smoking weed.
From a youth I smoked weed, for 42 years, and it was costing me every day financially and physically so I said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ Since I stopped I would say musically I am more up there again. It was the right decision.

You’ve continued your solo career in the ’00s but you also became a part of Prince Fatty with engineer Mike Pelanconi, which introduced you to a new audience.
Prince Fatty knew me from a studio called Lion Studio that used to be on Plato Road, off Acre Lane in Brixton. I met him there with Ronnie Lion in about 1999, around the time I did “More From A Little”, but we didn’t do anything until the early 2000s when he came to me and said he wanted me to be a part of it.

You and Mike started work on the Nirvana covers album Battle For Seattle in 2010 without you having even heard Nirvana before. As a singer of positive messages did you find any of the lyrical subject matter unpleasant?
I loved the melodies and the lyrics weren’t a problem to me, although in doing the album I did change some words! But I went along with it and enjoyed it. Nirvana’s people [Dave Grohl] said they really loved what I did and hoped it progressed.

When we last spoke in 2011, just before this album was being released you said you thought this album could bring you into the mainstream. Since then you’ve been played on commercial and public TV and radio and interviewed and reviewed by national newspapers. Would you say it has brought you into the mainstream and have you enjoyed the exposure?
I would say yes up to a point but there is still a long road to travel. It doesn’t stop here. A few interviews and radio plays don’t bring you into the mainstream. There has to be more to it. But yes, I have enjoyed it.

Do you get recognized by your younger fans?
Yes, I have been on the street and seen little youths come up and say ‘Hey! Little Roy!’ but only after I passed them! I’ve heard them look at their friend and say ‘That looked like Little Roy!’ Then they’d come up and shake my hand and say they’d got my new album Battle For Seattle and it’s great and things. I won’t let the mainstream stop me from associating with the world out there. I’m not going to hide from the world.

Why have you stopped working with Prince Fatty since the success of that project?
When I did the first albums it was released as Prince Fatty and at first I didn’t feel any way about that. But then after the second album when again it was released as ‘Prince Fatty’ with some Little Roy songs, including songs that I recorded in the ’70s like “Christopher Columbus”. So all those things made me start thinking. We went to Thailand with me and Winston Francis and the show was presented as Prince Fatty. It wasn’t even ‘Prince Fatty presents Little Roy and Winston Francis’. It was just ‘Prince Fatty’. Our name was not on the posters at all. So I started thinking, ‘I won’t be singing on a third album for him’. I had a career from 1965 – long before he was born. For me to give up my career of all those years, it just couldn’t be that way.

You spoke about another Nirvana album being in the pipeline. Will that go ahead now you’re not working with Prince Fatty? Would you ever work with Prince Fatty again?
No, because Prince Fatty is not Nirvana so it doesn’t depend on Prince Fatty. That would be up to the record company. There are many studios, many producers and many other engineers. You can never say never, because he is still my friend. It’s just that maybe through ego people sometimes make the wrong decisions.

“Tribal War” was covered on Nas and Damien Marley’s Distant Relatives (Republic, 2010). You once said to me before that the door is shut for a reggae artist if their name isn’t Marley. Is this true?
It’s kind of true (pauses). The door is shut but they can still let you kind of peep through the keyhole!

In 2011 you’ve released Heat (PID, 2011) an album where you re-recorded your classic songs. You’ve recorded an album where you interpret the classic songs of another great writer. Will you release an album of unreleased Little Roy compositions next?
Yes. I’m working on it. Right now I have to be thinking hard about what direction to take next because I have to be careful. Because what I do next could uplift me or it could be the end of my career. It’s the public that decides.

What sign are you?
Pisces.

Do you believe in astrology?
Sure.

Do you read any particular horoscopes?
Just the ones my dad sends me.

Do you do your own hair?
Ya.

How many colors have you dyed your hair?
All colors.

Do you believe in “2012”?
Sure, maybe, I’ll see when it happens.

Do you meditate?
No, boring.

Do you do yoga?
I stretch in a non-spiritual way.

Are you a spiritual person?
Ya.

Do you have a spirit animal?
Hyena and beluga.

Who is your favorite rapper?
Left Eye.

Do you know how to snowboard?
I’ve snowboarded once, it worked.

Do you know how to surf?
No.

What stresses you out?
Airplanes, interviews.

Do you think Nardwuar is actually funny?
Ya.

Do you think Hipster Runoff is funny?
Ya, except when it’s about me, haha.

Is Skrillex cool?
Very cool.

Do you see a therapist?
Haha, never.

What’s your favorite book?
Lord of the Rings, Dune.

Who is your favorite artist?
Heironymous Bosch

What is your favorite movie?
The 5th Element, Antichrist, Enter The Void, True Romance, Kill Bill… etc.

What’s your favorite music video?
TLC – “No Scrubs”, maybe?

What’s your favorite song?
Prince – “When Doves Cry”.

What is your favorite flower?
A black rose.

Who is your favorite comedian?
Everyone who writes for The Simpsons… Larry David?

Do you have a smartphone?
Hell no.

When are you happiest?
When I’m working on music.

Do you read reviews on Pitchfork?
Occasionally, yes.

Do you play video games?
Ya, not so much any more.

What do you use to download music?
Hmmm I just ask people to send me their music usually. Mediafire?

Do you ever steal things?
Not anymore, I don’t want to lose my U.S. visa.

Have you ever been with a girl?
Ya.

Have you ever been to an orgy?
These are explicit questions, haha.

Do you think young people today are sexually repressed?
Yes.

Do guys try to pick you up on Facebook?
I don’t use Facebook.

Are you an optimist?
Ya.

Are you the kind of person to “pack a lunch”?
Not usually.

Do you like Sonic Youth?
Meh.

Did the rain in Vancouver ever get you depressed?
I like the rain in Vancouver – it’s beautiful.

Have you ever dated a skateboarder?
Haha, ya.

When do you tweet?
When I’m able to.

Do you think people “get you”?
Nope.

Have you ever shaved your head?
Yes.

Do you ever wear wigs?
Yes.

Do you consider yourself to be political?
Yes.

Do you vote?
Yes.

Do you believe in revolution?
Yes.

Did you go to Occupy Wall Street?
No.

Have you ever participated in a riot?
Yes.

Do you ever crowd surf at your shows?
No, but I should.

Do you like kids?
I respect them.

Did you ever have braces?
Yes.

Do you have a “style icon”?
Marilyn Manson.

Do you like horror movies?
Yes.

Do you take vacations?
No.

Are you a fast walker?
Yes.

Are you a fast talker?
Yes.

Do you drink coffee?
Yes.

Have you ever considered acting?
When I was a kid.

Did you make rings with vaginas on them?
My friend Morgan Black did.

Are you rich?
Hopefully soon.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes.

Do you believe in an afterlife?
Yes.

Are Canadian cops nicer than American ones?
NO. Fuck them all.

Do you have an iPad?
No.

What magazines have you had a subscription to?
None, but I used to have National Geographic.

What kind of deodorant do you use?
Don’t wear deodorant.

Do you have a favorite soap?
Don’t use soap.

How many hours do you usually sleep a day?
Four – seven.

Have you ever destroyed a hotel room?
No. Well, I hope not.

Do you like Drake?
Ya, sometimes.

What was the last movie you saw?
The Human Centipede.

What is the perfect date?
Anything that impresses me.

What bores you?
Television.

What is your biggest fear?
Death.

Do you like disco?
Yes.

Do you write in a diary?
Ya.

Do you keep a sketchbook?
Yes.

Do you have a Tumblr?
I try to, but I think I’m over it.

Have you ever been a vegan?
Ya, for like six years!

Do you ever get paranoid?
Ya.

Do you own a vibrator?
No, but I should.

How do you like your eggs?
Hate eggs! Unless hard-boiled with sriracha.

Are you a “Montreal bagel” snob?
No, I can’t eat bagels.

Are you allergic to any foods?
Lots, I can basically only eat vegetables and protein. Although I loooove yogurt, it makes me really sick, but I eat it all the time.

Do you ever gamble?
Yes!!! God yes.

Is SXSW actually fun?
Ya, if you can approach it in the right way.

Have you ever had a pet?
Ya. A pug. RIP.

What was its name?
Ginger.

If you got a new pet what would you name it?
Pepper.

What’s your favorite song to do on karaoke?
Notorious B.I.G. – “Dead Wrong”.

What do you think of e-cigarettes?
I don’t know what they are.

Steve has lived in Illinois since attending journalism school at Northwestern University. He then moved to Chicago where he set up Electrical Audio Studio and still lives today. I had Steve’s E-mail address from an old college correspondence (it hadn’t changed) and we arranged to meet up one sunny afternoon in Spain. We took a walk down to the beach and got to chatting. The Steve Albini I had in my mind was the same guy right next to me: down-to-earth, practical, well-spoken and full of conviction.

We cut to the chase and got right to talking about some of the older records he’s made, his production process, and why he sticks to his analog guns. In fact, he sort of started talking – and didn’t stop for a long time. This is typical of his way of communicating. Steve has so much to say that there will never be enough space to get it all out on paper. So we are cutting straight to the juicy bits.

Steve: Because the masters of [older records I’ve made] exist, they were preserved and can be presented to audiences generations later. Records that my parents listened to, my friends’ children are now listening to. That’s the generational cycle of music. In a digital paradigm there is no way to create anything that has that kind of permanence. In a digital paradigm there is no physical material of a recording session, other than a computer file, and the computer file is subordinate to the software that’s used to open it. And all of that shit is proprietary. If Pro Tools or whatever goes out of business and you have a session that’s preserved in Pro Tools and in 20 years you want to make a record out of that, or you want to do something with that, and you can’t find an ancient computer with an ancient operating system with the precise version of that software on it that has all of the security features unlocked or something, you’re basically fucked in the future. I have too much respect for the artists that hire me. Analog recording sessions, if they do nothing else, and I am quite comfortable with the idea that they should do nothing else, but if they do nothing else, at the very least, they generate a permanent archival master that will outlive everyone, any moment in time. Take a band like Slint, for example, who put out a record and broke up and then had a second album released. Neither of their records got a lot of attention at the time. But over the course of 20 or 25 years, that band became appreciated by an entirely new audience, and the fact that their records survived that extended period and their masters still exist, means that music survived for this new audience. Their music survived long enough to find a natural audience. That’s just one contemporary example I can give you. There are literally countless examples. Like every year or so, someone uncovers a Billie Holliday recording that no one knew about from a radio station in Texas or something, a new Hank Williams recording that someone discovered some place. These are things that at the time were considered unimportant but have developed an importance over time the same way that an audience or significance will develop over time. My principal obligation to the people I work with is to make a record that will survive long enough to find its audience. So that’s the number one principle why I use analog recording techniques. They are the only suitable long-term storage medium for my clients.

Secondary to that, there has been a culture that has developed in the recording world, which is a direct result of these enormously powerful digital editing tools being available that put the engineer, the producer and other technical people in a kind of overlord position over everything that happens in a session; where if they want to they can replace every single drum stroke in a session. They can change the tuning of every note in a singer’s performance or they can displace things in time. They can take Monday’s bass part and put it on Thursday’s drum part and use pieces of a solo that were stolen surreptitiously over the course of the day. It makes the technical side of the recording process extremely powerful, and extremely capable. And it’s rare for someone to have an inordinate amount of power and not abuse it.

I’ve actually heard conversations amongst engineers where they talk about doing things duplicitously. The singer liked a particular take of the song but the engineer thought it was a little out of tune, so behind the scenes he retunes the vocal without telling anyone – things like that. The capabilities of the equipment are so great that it is almost impossible to do a simple straightforward recording and production of a record in the digital paradigm because there are so many digital capabilities that are presumed to be a standing part of the process. Just to disable all of that stuff might take you a very long time. I’ve never bothered to learn recording in the digital paradigm. We have digital recording capability at our studio because we are a commercial studio and everybody kind of expects it and all of our engineers are versed in it. But every time I’ve been involved in a session that uses digital methods, it seems like the session takes for-fucking-ever. Little decision after little decision. Tiny tweak after little tiny tweak. For most of the bands that I work with, doing it analog not only gets the best results but it’s also the most efficient way to do it. Because what they are trying to do, what they are trying to present, is a record that sounds like they do, you know?

There are some people that have ambitions that don’t sound like they do. They want records to be fantastic and artificial and have special effects, steel birth kind of sounds. Not every movie needs to be TRON.

If you have a movie that’s very straightforward and you graft elements of Tron onto it, just because that’s what you’re used to doing, it’s going to be alien and uncomfortable. And I am of the perspective that it’s rare that you need heroic intervention in the studio. In the analog domain, you can still do heroic intervention, you just don’t do it as a matter of course – you just do it when it’s absolutely necessary.

With the advent of all this digital technology, it actually makes the recording process democratic and anyone can record an album—
I think that’s actually great. When I first started playing in bands, it was rare to be able to get time in a studio. And now every band can record themselves. Even if it’s just a laptop with a capture program or whatever, every band has some sort of experience recording themselves or being recorded by somebody. And I think that’s great. It increases the literacy about what happens in the studio. It gives bands a chance to do stuff in private and review it before they actually have to invest a lot of money and get other people involved. I think the advances in technology are great and they make it so that everyone gets a chance to have some experience and that’s good. The mistake is in thinking that’s all that was necessary for the sum total of a band’s existence would be this kind of semi-professional environment. Some bands can be served well by that and it’s fine for them but there are some bands that deserve or expect at some point to record in a place with nice acoustics on some nice equipment with good sounding microphones and professionals helping them do it. And to that end, you kind of need studios like the studios we run. You don’t need that many of them in the world and it’s rapidly dwindling down to the point where there will be the only absolute bare minimum of those studios left. It’s nice to have a place like that available for sessions that benefit from it.

I think the same thing is happening with magazines. The whole rise of semi-professionalism in the digital age is democratizing things that at one time were only for people who had some sort of training and level of skill. Now anyone can be a journalist or an engineer. You have a background in journalism and have worked for a number of magazines. Do you feel a particular affinity for printed publications?
The nice thing about journals, like magazines and newspapers, is very similar to what I was describing about the master tapes of a session. You can stack them up on a shelf and they won’t go anywhere and the words won’t erase themselves off the page. Well, some Xerox’s might not hold up very well. Having a physical library of physical media is significant and important. I do like the fast, immediate and personal contact that the Internet provides. I think Internet forums and websites that allow direct interactions with bands and other people – those are really great things. I actually feel like they’ve generated a lot more, a lot broader, and a lot deeper exposure to areas of interest. People gravitate towards things that they’re generally intrigued by so you have these sites that are populated with people who are really deeply interested in something, so amongst themselves they can share stuff and get farther and farther along in their appreciation of something. And that’s a great development from the Internet. If they had to wait for someone else to write articles, make a magazine and distribute it to them, those people would be an awful lot poorer in their experience of whatever they’re interested in, whether it’s model trains or Ham radio or underground music or Italian porn films. It doesn’t really matter what it is, they instantaneously have a worldwide community for it and I think that’s great.

There is something though in the lack of anticipation around music now though. For a band, it’s about releasing as many MP3s as possible, being active online, and creating consistent output. And as a fan, it’s about trying to keep up with that. This whole content race and sense of having to keep on top of things takes away that feeling of suspense around an artist’s next release.
Yes, and no. There will always be some people who want to graze in that manner, like constantly consuming new things. But there’s still a distinctive collector audience who will buy a record from a band and have that record forever. That’s why vinyl record sales have survived as the only viable physical music medium. There’s a difference between a casual music listener who’s going to be listening to MP3s and poor quality audio equipment, just listening casually, and that’s a totally normal way to listen to music, and then there’s people who are really into music who want to have a nice listening experience on an actual hi-fi, generally playing a record, generally in their home. I think both ends of that spectrum are always going to have to be served by what remains of the music business. It seems like the people who take music more seriously on an individual level are going to gravitate toward vinyl records and hi-fi’s and the people who are more transitory, cultural interest fans will be satisfied with whatever is presented to them. I don’t have any problem with MP3s as a convenience format. They generally sound terrible if you listen to them critically but most people who listen to MP3s are not listening to them critically, so it doesn’t matter. I think that’s fine. It’s the difference between an AM radio and your home hi-fi. To take an older generation’s perspective on it, people didn’t sit around on the beach with a hi-fi, they sat on the beach with a little AM radio and listened to it that way. It allowed them to have a listening experience in any environment and I think an iPod is exactly the same thing. It’s not to say that you don’t want to have a hi-fi or a record collection at home, because most people who are really into music do want to have these things at home.

Watching you play live, you look so in your element and so happy.
(Smiling) Well, it is my favorite thing to do.

More than recording?
Oh yeah. Recording is my job. It’s a very good job, don’t get me wrong. I can’t complain. But it is a job. And there are a very small number of sessions that I do on an annual basis where if it weren’t my job, I would choose to do them for fun. A very small number of them. Whereas if you take all of the shows my band has played in our lifetime, I would be happy to play any of those shows for fun. Getting paid is nice and we’ll always take the money. But if I were here and if someone said, ‘Would you like to play?’ I would say, ‘Yes.’

You’re really quite prolific as a producer. Looking at the roster of what you’ve produced over the years, it looks like it’s at least 10 albums a year.
Oh, more than that. It works out to about four to eight sessions a month.

Four to eight a month?!
Most of the sessions don’t constitute a full record. Whether it’s an EP an LP or a single, in a given year, I probably do between 30 and 50 albums.

Holy shit. That’s crazy. I don’t think anyone does that many albums.
(Laughing) Well, I mean, there are other people who are as busy as me but they may have more long-term clients or they may do more stuff that doesn’t actually result in a record. They do more demo sessions or one-off stuff. I work a lot but that’s not really part of my goal in life, to work a lot. I just don’t mind. If somebody wants to come in the studio, I have bills to pay, I’m gonna do the session. I’m not inclined to say no to anybody.

Going back to what you said about not really having an aesthetic that you try to impress upon people, you seem to take on less the role of svengali and more the role of facilitator.
I’ve said it many times, I feel like I’m hired in the same way someone would hire a plumber. People shouldn’t try to install their own toilets unless they know what they’re doing. People shouldn’t try to record their own albums unless they know what they’re doing, so they hire a recording engineer.

So a band that doesn’t really know what they want to do when they come into the studio isn’t the right kind of band to work with you?
I’ve literally never worked with a band that didn’t know what they wanted to do. That’s used as an excuse by a lot of producer-type guys. ‘Oh the band doesn’t really know how they want to make this record. Oh, they don’t really know what they want out of this record or what they want out of their band.’ That’s bullshit. Every band I’ve worked with and every single band I’ve ever encountered has some sort of image in their head of the perfect record for them. They have an idea of what they want everything to sound like. They know exactly, if not from a technical standpoint, they know what sort of effect they want their music to have on their listeners. I think it’s a complete canard to say that a band needs someone in the studio to tell them what they want. That’s nonsense. I hear that as a defense a lot from more intrusive producers. I think it’s bullshit. I’ve just never encountered a band that didn’t know what they wanted their record to sound like.

I’m sure it’s hard with your track record to pinpoint a favorite.
There’s no album that I can pinpoint as the best album but there are sessions that were super enjoyable sessions, whether the record ending up being a remarkable record or not. Those are really memorable to me.

Are they the ones that might seem obvious? Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, and Nirvana’s In Utero are some of the albums I listened to over and over as a kid.
For example, that Jawbreaker record, I have forgotten several times that I even did that. (Laughing) I had to be reminded of that not too long ago. I literally don’t remember anything about that record except that while it was underway I remember thinking it was okay. I didn’t have any problem with it, but it didn’t register with me as a great musical experience. For example, I did a session with the Stooges. The Stooges were probably the most important band to me when I was a teenager. Funhouse is the record. One way or another I have been trying to make a record like Funhouse my entire life. And to get a call from Iggy Pop saying, ‘Would you like to work on the new Stooges album?’ was like the kind of dreams come true moment I’ve never really had before. So, I got to spend the better part of a month hanging out with the Stooges everyday making a record. That session was a pure joy from start to finish. The resulting record wasn’t perceived particularly well but I couldn’t give a shit. And I was like a pig in shit the whole time, literally hanging out with my—

Your idols?
No, not idols. Idols implies some sort of devotion. They were my heroes. My heroes because they completely ignored what was going on around them and made a couple of amazing records despite what must have been pressure for them to make other kinds of music. They always stuck to their guns. When they showed up to the studio, they were exactly like what I had hoped they would be. Iggy Pop was super strong, super horny, his personality completely takes over the room whenever he’s there – completely self-confident, fantastic work ethic. They had everything figured out before they came to the studio. They had everything down. Scottie is a totally unshakeable, unflappable drummer. You could fire pistols around him while he was drumming and it wouldn’t disturb him at all. Everything about that session was exactly what I had hoped it would be. And it was fantastic. It was a really amazing experience. I did a bunch of records with a band called Silkworm. I did 10 or 11 records with Silkworm and we developed a very close relationship and a very close friendship. Things like that resonate with me way more than, ‘Oh that record was a hit,’ or, ‘That was a hot guitar solo’ or something. When I’ve developed a long friendship with people through the course of making a record, then that means that not only was the process of recording satisfactory, but it actually became bigger than itself. I’ve done a number of sessions with Will Oldham. He and I are great friends. I’ve done a bunch of sessions with a singer from New York called Nina Nastasia and we’re great friends. But I just feel like those longer-term relationships are infinitely more rewarding than making a hit album.

Robert Alfons is responsible for the synths and vocals while bandmate Mya Postepski is on drums. They have been together for about two years now and are working on their second full-length recording following the release of their first, called TRST (Arts & Crafts, 2012).

TRUST’s music sounds like it was lifted from a lost film from the ’80s from a scene depicting a dystopian nightclub filled with sinister and bizarre-looking teenagers ingesting illegal chemicals and partying until sunset. We met at a diner in Toronto.

Let’s get into this. Tell me how you met Mya.
We have a mutual friend that we’re both close with. I watched Mya drum when she was playing with Katie Stelmanis and I was like, ‘Girl drummers rule!’

What did you listen to when you were growing up?
Everything my sister listened to. I remember she got her first CD player and had Ace of Base and Real McCoy and Alanis Morissette. Those were the first things I remember getting in me and they were the only things I could listen to. That and Dire Straits. My dad listened to a lot of Dire Straits.

They’re really underrated.
I mean I don’t have an extensive knowledge of their catalog, but some of it is really, really good.

I’d say a lot of it is really, really good. I like them a ton. Can you recall the first record you ever bought?
I don’t remember the first record, but I was remembering the other day how I had bought a collection of all the hot pop music from that time. I remember wondering how it could be so cheap but it was one of those compilations where they would just do covers of the songs. It sounded pretty good to me. That was an early, early buy for me – buying one of those $6 collections of covers.

What movies resonated with you as a kid?
What did I watch a lot? I remember I watched Star Wars a lot. I watched Star Wars endlessly. And like Austin Powers. Austin Powers stuck with me.

That’s a fantastic movie.
I think those are the two big ones from my childhood.

Well Star Wars makes more sense when I listen to your music, but I personally enjoy Austin Powers a lot.
I think they both make sense.

Where did the image from your album cover come from?
That’s a picture I took. I used to take pictures when I used to go out all the time.

What’s up with your blog?
I haven’t been updating it. I guess I’m not such a social person anymore. I used to take a camera everywhere I went and it was a film camera. I remember that night, but I didn’t know that was how it was going to turn out. It just showed up and I was mesmerized by the photo.

Well, it looks like a found photo. Like someone’s lost photo from a very long time ago. Or maybe not-so-long ago.
Oh, that’s cool. No, no. We had been wanting to use that for a while.

It’s a really captivating picture. Is photography something you went to school for and were doing before music?
No, no, no. I wasn’t doing any sort of schooling for it. It was just something that I liked to do.

Did you go to school for music? What did you take in school?
No. Well, I finished high school.

Me too. Every review I’ve read about your album inevitably uses the word ‘dark’ to describe your music. Do you think that your music is dark or comes from a dark place?
I mean, sure. I mean we love Austin Powers and that was totally an inspiration for the record. Totally.

(Laughs) So there is humor in your music?
I don’t think we take ourselves too seriously. We both have a problem with uppity music. Like, really major – it feels kind of soulless. I have a hard time listening to a song that is completely in a major key. But I mean, the songs are all rooted in some sort of truth.

Do you write the lyrics?
The lyrics are mine. They’re definitely mine. There are a few bits on the album that are Mya’s. But it’s something that I enjoy doing. It’s fun to play around with pop music and writing lyrics for pop music. I think it’s a good challenge.

Do you see your music as being primarily pop?
I guess. I think it’s pop music. But I have a hard time – I think Tom Waits is pop music. I listen to Tom Waits and think, ‘This is pop music, right?’

Well it’s dark. I’m the same way. Before I listened to the record, I expected it to be dark and industrial because of what I’d read. To me, it sounded heavily influenced by Speak and Spell, the first Depeche Mode album and maybe the first Ministry album, rather than say, the third Ministry album. Or fourth Depeche Mode album if that makes sense.
Yeah yeah. I don’t know either of those bands’ collections extensively. I can remember the first album from Depeche Mode and a few songs from it. I remember that was the album with the guy who didn’t stay on with them.

And he went on to play in Erasure.
And Yaz as well. I don’t know, I don’t think we have an extensive knowledge of industrial or dark music.

Let’s talk about Toronto. There’s been some talk recently about Toronto and some bands are getting international recognition right now, TRUST being one of them. Do you think there’s something particularly special happening in Toronto or do you think it is simply due to the fact that Toronto is in the spotlight at the moment?
There are a lot of factors I think, that make Toronto a good place to breed music. I understand that it doesn’t happen overnight. There’s a lot of work that needs to happen. And, Toronto is cheap enough for that to happen. Maybe it’s just a certain time. Maybe in three years it will be a very different city. In fact, I’m sure it will be.

I think so. How long have you been in Toronto for?
Around four years.

Have you been going out to shows and parties in Toronto?
I don’t really. Not as much as I used to. When I first came here I was really keen on it but I really haven’t been to many shows recently.

Do any shows that you’ve seen stand out for you?
I remember seeing Pony Da Look and I loved that band. I thought they were such a good live act. I remember that show really affected me. This isn’t music, but there was a night called Hot Nuts. The two ladies that do it – I’m mesmerized by them. I remember going to that.

Was it the music, or was it the spectacle that affected you?
They always had a performance and they always did a little section where they had a host and there were announcements and they were superstars to me.

And that party is still going?
Totally. And it was actually just last night. So it was a little nostalgic moment to go and see them.

Are there any bands in Toronto right now that you feel are particularly special?
I haven’t really been going out. But Ell V. Gore, who played at our show – Elliot has always been doing really cool shit. So definitely that project. Cam Findley has this project called Kontravoid and it’s really good stuff.

And Kontravoid recently released a record, didn’t they?
Yeah. I haven’t heard the whole thing, but what I’ve heard is really good.

I feel like Cam, Elliot and yourself all have a very similar aesthetic. Do you see a scene existing right now?
Maybe a bit. It feels sort of disjointed. The memory of our first show really felt like something. I felt there was a really good vibe.

Tell me more about the your first show.
I sent Mikey Apples our stuff maybe two weeks before the show. He said ‘Can you play in two weeks?’ I remember being totally, totally nervous. It was a great show. It was super well-attended and that club is awesome with the entire wall of mirrors. It’s a creepy, weird goth bar. It’s cool.

Do you feel that goth culture resonates with you guys as a reference point for your band?
Maybe. Not entirely.

What aspects?
I’m sure our music fits in that kind of setting.

Tell me about some more of your earlier shows.
I’m trying to think. I don’t feel like we’ve really played a bad show. What I mean is that every show we’ve played has a good crowd or there’s been a good act that we’re playing with. We’ve been really lucky. I still feel like it’s the same problem – I remember early on, people were on opposite ends. It wasn’t that people were indifferent about it. It was either, ‘This is really cool’ or ‘This sucks’. I remember we were met with that right away and I got used to it.

I guess because your sound is so specific. What is your recording space like right now?
We did a lot of the stuff at Mya’s place. I work on stuff at my place, it’s not anything fancy at all. But that’s the thing – I think less is probably more for me because I get overwhelmed with too many options. I learned how to use midi for this album, which I had never used before. It’s a mix of that and keyboards. It’s nothing too fancy.

What has influenced you working on this album? What did you hope to create?
I think we just wanted to make a really strong pop record with a really emotional story. I think that once you actually sit down to create, you leave the influences aside because then you always endlessly compare yourself to all these other things that you think are brilliant and you will never be as good. That’s totally the way it goes.

Were you born in Toronto?
No, I’m from Winnipeg.

Tell me about growing up in Winnipeg?
It was good. Most people here are from a small town. But Winnipeg is a city, it’s a good city. But I needed something bigger.

Did you feel comfortable instantly in Toronto?
No. It took me so long.

How come?
I was just being socially awkward and learning how to be a person and a human.

That’s a tough thing to learn how to do.
Mmmhmm…

How did you start meeting people?
I’m thinking back now and it took me so long. I was so confined to my apartment making music and finding what I wanted to do. But I think that once you start going out – you find those shows and you find those things and you find the people really fast.

Do you find your photography helped with that?
Yeah sure. All of it kind of helped. Once you made that move – it was so easy.

Did you go to a lot of dance parties? More than live concerts?
I think I definitely went to more clubs than concerts.

What kind of clubs did you go to?
Hot Nuts was the best party I remember from the past. I remember those Vaseline parties, but I was on the tail-end of those. The first Vaseline I went to, the host found me and she was like 12 feet tall and her hair was like five feet tall and I just felt like a little kid.

(Laughs) You have talked quite a bit about performances and spectacle. Is that something that you’d like to integrate into your live show?
I don’t know what the future will be. But as of right now I think about a balance between being a band and being a show. But you don’t want it to go too far and have it become hokey. I dream up music that’s meant to be epic and meant to be big so it’s about being able to translate that on a small stage. Or trying to convey that feeling.

You have been playing outside of Toronto more and more recently. How was playing that first show in which you didn’t know anybody in the room?
It’s been good. Our last New York show was great. It feels good. I think we’re still really new to touring but it feels good to go somewhere and have people know me.

Do you have fun?
Yeah, totally.

What’s the dynamic between you and Mya? Is there any tension there or do you agree on most things?
We’re a pretty good team.

Do you ever foresee yourself leaving Toronto?
The more I go away, it’s so nice to come back to Toronto. We’ll see. Things are just picking up and I’m away from home more now. So it would be silly to move at this point.

TRUST got attention, as many bands do these days, very fast. Did you find that strange to cope with?
It was two years ago that we played our first show. But, it’s been a lot of work. It feels like a long time. If I think back to those days, our early shows and it feels like ten years ago. But, I don’t think it’s going too fast. I think that I’ve had enough time to process it. So I feel on top of it.

Well, that’s good. What do you have planned for the near-future?
We’re playing Chicago and then we’re going to the UK for the first time.

I feel like the UK will respond really well to TRUST.
I mean, the UK is tough. As I learn more about the music industry, the UK is tough. It’s the one to crack. I’m excited and I’m excited to be in London for the first time.

Do you know what bands you’ll be playing with?
It hasn’t been confirmed. It’s a mix of smaller shows that are ours and bigger shows with other people. But, it’s our first play there. It’s going to be really enjoyable.

Is there anybody that you’d like to record with or collaborate with?
The thing is, I don’t really work well with other people. Mya and I click. You were asking how we get along and we just get along, it works. But I mean, who would I want to work with? I haven’t dealt with that and I don’t know who I actually could work with. There are people that I admire making music today, so someone like Ke$ha. I would love to have a chance to work with Ke$ha. But Gina X, definitely Gina X. I would love to work with her.

Is she still around?
I have no idea. All of her albums are really great.

Did you ever have any pets growing up?
I had a cat that died. I had a cat for six months and then she died. So I took that as a sign that I can’t have an animal right now.