Circa Survive is an alternative rock group that doesn’t sound like an alternative rock group. Featuring influences from genres such as emo, progressive rock, and experimental rock, the band is fresh off their sixth album The Amulet, and will be in Ottawa on March 27. The Charlatan chatted with guitarist Colin Frangicetto to learn a bit about the record, and also to get some new music recommendations.
The Charlatan (TC): Let’s start with The Amulet, tell me a bit about the process of making that record.
Colin Frangicetto (CF): For the most part, I think we’ve had quite a few different processes over the years, but I would say since we did Decensus, we’ve kind of had a certain way about it. We’ll go into the studio with very little actually finalized, you know we go in with a few ideas with vocals, but for the most part just some instrumental ideas that are very un-messed with. This is kind of an attempt to inspire spontaneity and less overthinking. We go in, we know we have a set period of time, usually about six weeks or so to make a record. In the past, we would usually just demo ourselves to death by the time we even got in there, and have like every song completely rehearsed and perfect. Now we just go in and fly by the seat of our pants. It’s been so much more enjoyable once we started doing that. The past two [records] have just been pure joy and pleasure for the most part, and very little bickering. There’s kind of an established confidence we have in ourselves, as a group and also in each other. It’s just the result of a decade-plus of getting to know each other.
TC: What was the biggest challenge behind making the record?
CF: I would say it’s more so an objective that is always there to remain true to artistic visions and not let outside noise interfere with that, and to try to make something that’s pure and not concerned about trends or financial or critical success. All that stuff’s really great, and nice when it happens, but I think we’ve found that often when you aim for that, you usually fall short. When you’re dealing with art, that stuff translates on a level that’s more on the subconscious and under the surface. So, if you do something that’s passionate and pure in intent, it can be heard and felt in the art. I think that it’s not so much challenging anymore because we make strategic decisions based off this [approach] in mind so we don’t put ourselves into situations where we feel that kind of pressure coming from the outside . . . I think for the most part, making records these days is just really enjoyable, not so much a struggle or a challenge.
TC: Did you find yourselves experiencing those kinds of challenges earlier on in your career?
CF: Oh yeah. I think no matter what, in any band that goes through the process of becoming a full-time band, going through record labels, management, booking agents, and starting from the ground up, you’re going to definitely face this stuff. When we were coming up, the whole situation was very different. People could still sell albums, major labels were still signing bands with ridiculous advances, it was kind of the end of that whole era. There was still some of that old-school rock and roll residue all over the industry, so we got to experience some of the clichés such as getting taken to dinner by big-shots, people promising you the world, and all that stuff. I think because we had all come from previous bands and had gone through some of that beforehand, I feel like we had our heads on pretty straight, as far as how to handle it. We did a pretty good job, I mean for the most part, we really just focused on staying as a cohesive unit. For very much the majority of our early career, we would live together in a house, and were practically communistic in a way. We just put every dollar we made into a band fund, even when we were starting to make a lot of money, and we paid ourselves very, very little, lived in a house that the band paid for, and just focused on making music and living together. That was kind of our focus as a young band . . . I think making records back then was like a learning experience, working with producers who knew more than we did in terms of song construction, and album production, and navigating situations like working with A&R people once we were on Atlantic [records], firing and hiring booking agents and lawyers and whatever throughout the years . . . All that stuff’s part of the journey you go through as a band or an artist.
TC: Do you think you would have been able to pull stuff off the same way if you started out today?
CF: That’s a really good question. It’s really hard to say. On one hand, getting noticed and recognized now as a new artist feels like it’s both easier and much harder. What I mean by that is the internet has kind of levelled the playing ground in a lot of ways, and given exposure to a lot of people who probably wouldn’t have [received it earlier]. But it also has increased the amount of noise since there’s so much stuff out there that if you’re new and trying to make a name for yourself from nothing, it can be really daunting at times.
I think everything has just shifted. Success is defined differently, the method new bands need to go about in terms of being able to sustain early on when you’re not making much money, to me that’s always been the key to being an independent, DIY, underground band, especially in the beginning. Living below your means, really focusing on just staying together as a unit and not losing people to full-time jobs or college or whatever else they have to do. Really, if it’s not a full-time effort, there’s going to be other people out there doing it, and they’re going to take your opportunities, and that’s just the way it is. That’s not to say people can’t have unique arrangements, where people have other stuff that they do, because obviously that’s a thing. I do think that being a part-time band in the beginning and trying to make something happen is very difficult. It’s been that way for a long time, you have to give it everything you have.
The only thing I would say that would be different, even we did this, we made a full-length record, signed a record deal before we ever played a live show . . . We already had our game plan together, and I’ve been telling people for years that I think that’s a better way to go, to really focus your energy on songwriting and recording as much as possible, and not playing out too soon. A lot of people get sucked into this thing where they feel like if they’re not playing shows, they’re not being active, and taking every opportunity, every show that gets thrown at them, and they’re wasting an opportunity. It’s a really easy trap to fall into, basically you play your local wherever—your local club, your local hall or whatever, like 25 times a year—and by the end of the year, everyone’s sick of you and doesn’t really care. I think people just put too much emphasis on playing out early on and not enough on figuring out who you are as a band.
TC: I’ll listen to a Circa Survive track, and there’s a lot of stuff going on, I’ll hear elements of alternative, prog, experimental, stuff like that. What exactly is it about the band’s songwriting approach that makes the sound so difficult to pin down?
CF: You know, probably just because it’s pretty organic, and the five of us have relatively eclectic tastes . . . There’s a really wide range of stuff and there’s never really a time where we go “Oh no, that can’t happen because it doesn’t fit into this box of what it’s supposed to be.” It’s always more so been a situation where “Oh that sounds really fresh, that doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done before.” We’ve kind of like moved towards that rather than shied away from it. It’s the same thing just like over the years, like when I talked about worrying about trends, I think there’s a lot of bands who fall into these traps of like “Oh guitar solos aren’t cool anymore” or “real drums aren’t cool” . . . I hear a lot of people overthink their sound in that way, even if they’ve been a band for a few years, and I just think it’s a really dangerous road to go down, and it’s a really easy way to feel like you have no sound. You’re like “what are we even doing anymore?” I think for us we’ve always stayed very close to what’s inspiring for us. Like what someone else in the band is playing that sounds good to our ears, it’s very simple and natural to us to say “that’s awesome,” or “I’m not really feeling that.” That’s just the really simple way that we write. Because we have a really strong friendship and understand each other’s points of view and artistic styles, it’s really easy for us to say “I’m not really into something someone else is doing” in an honest, candid way, and they’re not going to be upset about it. We focus on just making stuff that really feels strong, and like I said before just pure in intent.
TC: Do you have any music that you want to recommend to a bunch of college kids?
CF: Ooooh. Man, there’s so much good music out there, I’m sure that most college kids are way more aware of good music than I am. Off the top of my head the last two albums I listened to that I think were really great, the new Blood Orange record is super inspiring, and the most recent MGMT album is really great. The amount of good music out there is just seriously overwhelming. It’s crazy. It’s one of the coolest times to be a music fan ever, I think. Like having a catalogue of any band you want streaming at any point, plus just the amount of obscure, unknown stuff that you can find on the internet really easily, it’s an incredible time. Tell people to email me if they have any suggestions for stuff I should check out.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Photo provided
