Anathallo Interview
SW– Seth Walker, bass
BW– Bret Wallin, trombone, drums
DB– Danny Bracken, guitar
KM: I saw Anathallo on Purple Door last summer, you’re on the festival again this year and you’ve tour relentlessly for the past 6 years. How have you responded to your fans and the kinds of crowds you’ve played to? Would you say your music is more directed at fans or more of a personal thing?
SW, BW, DB: Our music is more personal in than ‘made for our fans.’ Pleasing the fans is more of an afterthought in our writing. We write what we like and then hope that people like it. Since we’ve been on tour with The Format, we’ve had the chance to play to bigger audiences which is always fun and we’ve gained some new fans along the tour. The only thing that we really change about our playing is the presentation. We change how we present our music from one crowd to the next.
KM: Where did you come up with the idea behind your new record, Floating World? How did you arrive at creating a sort of ‘soundtrack’ to the stories of Japanese folklore and myth?
SW: The lyrics were written by Matt. I actually grew up in Japan so I took some part as well in interpreting the stories into music. Matt and I lived together at college. I sort of peaked his interest in Japanese culture and he took a Japanese classics course where he was reading a lot of the folktales.
BW: We wanted to use a different culture’s folktale. We toyed with the idea of confusion. We wanted to show a different culture’s means of communication. How people communicate, the meaning of words kind of hanging up in the air, etc. What would happen to the Japanese folktale if we put our spin on it? How that represents our frustration and our communication and living.
KM: What inspires the creative process of Anathallo? Does everyone partake in writing and/or what does each member bring to the table?
DB: We recorded 2-2 {1/2} years with a lot of different people involved at different stages in writing. We write pretty collectively for the most part. We’ll start with one idea and then build on that. Everyone contributes.
KM: Where does each member come from in regards to musical background, training, and skills?
BW: A couple people were in marching band and choir in school. Others have come from musical families, grew up with music in their home.
KM: What is the transition like from playing live to going in to the studio to record?
DB: We really don’t write on the road, we just don’t have time to.
SW: Our default way of writing is pretty time intensive so it’s really difficult to write while we’re touring.
BW: It’s more of everyone sitting around, all getting together, and spending a couple hours of throwing ideas back and forth, but on the road there’s really no time for doing any of that. Most of it is just piece by piece, little by little.
KM: You’re more of a grassroots type of band, what is it like now that you’re working with a record label, publicists, booking agent, etc?
BW: 6 years ago there was no one to book shows. If you wanted to put out an album you’d borrow your parents’ credit cards and pay them back when you sold the CDs. As we’ve gotten older, we have a manager now and a booking agent. We’ve had influences of the business world come in and I think we’ve always thought to just be open to working with people. We just always want what we do to make sense. You just want things to be on your own terms and you never want to settle or compromise. If there were a record label that made a lot of sense that allowed us control over the music then cool.
DB: There are definitely some business things that have to be involved. Many of us don’t have jobs; some of us have college loans, rent, and bills to pay off. Now we have to think about a lot of things as we get olderour future. This is a career to us. We have to think about the future, yet make sure to stay true to ourselves.
KM: Anything you’d like to add or let people know about?
SW, DB, BW: We’re doing a tour in the fall for 6 weeks with Page France. They’re a band out of Maryland. We’re excited about touring with them, it should be a lot of fun. That’s it for now.
Check out Anathallo at Spaceland on November 11th.
Interview with Nate of The Format
KM: What kind of crossover audiences have you played to or bands have you tour with that were unlike your style of music?
Nate: I don’t think anyone is really like our style. We’ve done so many different types of things with the stuff that I associate with or relate to. We’ve toured with Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, Switchfoot, and OAR.
KM: How would you describe your writing process or how you put together a record?
Nate: It depends on the mood were in. Sometimes I write a song, other times Sam who writes a lot of the songs too, he might have music and have me write lyrics over it. Other times we’ll get together and talk about it and figure it out.
KM: Since most of your time is spent on tour, is it hard to go into the studio to record?
Nate: I think the studio is a lot easier. It happens a lot less frequently than being on the road which is 9 months out of the year. The studio you’re in maybe 4 months out of every 2 years. I get really excited at the thought of going into the studio.
KM: What’s it like implementing the business side of things into your music? Would you say it’s intrusive or positive?
Nate: It was intrusive when we were on a major label, but we asked to be released and they released us. Now that we’re doing everything ourselves it’s a lot easier. It requires a little more work, but at the same time it’s more rewarding because you are doing everything yourself and it’s a lot easier not to blame other people. We spent the first 3 years being in a band blaming everything on our record label and now if anything goes wrong it’s like ‘we are our record label.’
KM: Is there anything else you’d like to add or let people know about?
Nate: Well, we have a new record out called Dog Problems and we really like it. Hopefully people will like it, too. We’re going to be on tour forever, at least for the next year, so come check us out.
