FINDING OUT THE BAND’S TAKE ON A POSSIBLE SPIRITUAL AWAKENING IN 2012 AND CRAZY FAN STORIES, SALEM ALSO GAVE SKY THE SAME TREATMENT – ONLY THIS TIME, THE BAND FINDS ANSWERS ON HOW THE MUSIC YOU CAN MAKE, CAN REALLY AFFECT YOUR PERSONAL INTIMACY…
SALEM: Do you think you should push yourself to your limits, even if it hurts your loved ones and those around you?
SF: I’m really stubborn, and I feel everything in extremes. If I feel I need to accomplish something, I will. I would never purposely hurt someone, but I think this ‘career path’ can be really demanding, and affect relationships you have in your life….
SALEM: We’re all young and learning about the industry… What makes you wish no one was watching?
SF: Eh… at the moment, I don’t have much of a personal life to hide – you know, no kids to protect. I mean, I wouldn’t want someone watching me sleep or shower, but I guess that’s a whole other thing.
SALEM: Have you ever had an experience with a spirit?
SF: I wish I’ve had an experience with a spirit! I use to be scared of them, but now I find it comforting.
SALEM: Do you have any fans that shower you with gifts? Explain…
SF: Fan Art is my favourite, because some of it is really funny. I’ve also had a cake once with my face on it which was, uh… cool???
SALEM: If you give too much of yourself through your music and performance, it’s hard to be intimate with one person… Sky, do you have a boyfriend?
SF: I’ve never been much of an affectionate person, and I find it difficult to be intimate with anyone – even when a relationship is platonic. Yes, I do have a boyfriend, and he’s the only one I’ve ever had… the thought of having more scares me, not the thought of being alone. I’ll make out with someone, but if they try to hold my hands or hug me, it makes me really uncomfortable. It seems more sweet and personal, you know? I think that’s why I write so many overly sexual songs. A part of me wishes to be a person that can enjoy all of those things, but I can’t.
SALEM: Would you rather be a homeless dog, or a pet bird that gets to fly around in a mansion?
SF: A homeless dog that can fly.
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SF: I’m a big fan of your ‘Better Off Alone’ cover. How did that come about?
JH: Thank you! The melody and lyrics are sad and intense, even though it’s formatted as an uplifting pop/dance club song played to have fun. This is nice because having fun and partying can actually be very sad, and, well, being sad can sometimes be a party. A lot of times people are so afraid of feeling anything besides happy and content, but a person can and should feel all feelings – because they’re beautiful in their own ways. The repetition of the melodic transgression is very powerful as it repeats, builds and breaks down… It’s somehow different then any other club song – it sticks with you in a different way. When the melody is stuck in your head, it’s more like hypnosis, rather than something catchy you want to go away. A lot of times when we really like a song that has already been made, we make our own version (we cover it) in a way to show how much we admire and appreciate it. Sometimes, when two people break up a relationship, the one person has to burn everything they own from the other to put that experience to rest. Sometimes making a cover song is like that.
SF: How do you feel about live shows? Do you prefer it to be a visual or environmental experience, or would you rather just play the instruments and have it sound really well?
JH: We want our live shows to be visual, environmental and have everything sound really well… Basically, all of the above! When we play, live we mix samples with live instrumentation and singing/rapping. We are continuously working on building our live set to be more and more inspired and reflective of whom we are – we want to express what we put into the music into the live shows. In the beginning, this can be very difficult… playing live can be art in itself, and we’re always trying to build on it and make it better. ‘
JD: I think that environment is extremely important. It wouldn’t be as engaging to watch a punk show in a quiet seated orchestral hall, than being at a high energy show where everyone was freaking out. Same with a string quartet in a night club, where everyone was trying to get drunk and fuck each other… people would be too distracted to hear subtle moments, and it would make the club not fun. I think we’re still working on creating a live show that’s as strong and intense as the music we make, and a big part of that is controlling the feeling and setting of the shows we play. When we play shows where people are only willing to have ‘fun’ and not really get into the music, it’s unfulfilling for us and the audience.
HM: I would say that I want our performances to be an experience. Manipulating the audience physically, emotionally and with sound and vision really interests me. In the future, we would like to do more performance-based work where the aspect of manipulation is more extreme.
SF: Do you ever find of all this as being too much (touring, press)? Is any of this overwhelming?
JH: Yes. The three of us can vary from being very social and energetic to being very reclusive and quiet (mentally and physically). Oftentimes this changes from person to person, but also from second to second in just one of us. Sometimes travelling and doing interviews can be creatively inspiring, and sometimes it can be really depressing and disillusioning.
JD: Not really… the organisation part is hard for me, but I’m not very overwhelmed or drained by travelling, or people wanting time and energy from me. I’M POWERED UP!
HM: I’m a very deliberate person, so the pace at which the industry expects you to perform doesn’t work that well for me… I prefer to focus on one thing and make it the best it can be rather than do a thousand things at once. It is a challenge.
SF: Would you rather be blind or deaf?
JH: I would rather be blind. A lot of times I don’t like to see things, and it can be stressful. I always want to hear everything. I wouldn’t be able to hear or make music very well if I was deaf.
JD: DEAF! I think it might be easier to quiet your insides if you couldn’t hear what was going on outside. Like when you’re swimming in the ocean and you go underwater, and all the sounds of outside of people are gone… but that can only last for a minute because you have to come up to breathe. It might feel like that peace of swimming in the ocean, but it could last. It would also take more effort to communicate, so people might only bother to tell you things they really thought you should know.
HM: I would rather be deaf. I love the scenes in movies when a character goes to a rave or party, and the sound fades out until it is silent except for a bass hum and there are coloured lights and people dancing all around. I would make music in my imagination, I suppose… I would be terrified to be blind – and I couldn’t ride horses as well!
SF: What’s a weird fan story you can share with me?
JD : This drunk girl ended up coming back to our hotel. When I tried to go to sleep she got naked and into my bed and kept touching my back with her freezing cold hands. Me and John stay in the same room, even when we are each given our own, so I dipped across the hall to the extra room. Then heard noise in the hall, so I stood by the door and looked out the peep-hole. The girl had left the room, and started slowly going down the hallway, naked, knocking and putting her ear against doors. It was really unsettling. She looked strangely powerful and threatening… She stood in front of the door of the room I was in for a long time, and everything felt still, like something was about to shatter. When people are that gone, it’s confusing who’s operating their body… I have seen pictures of myself from nights I don’t remember where my eyes don’t look like mine. It seems, at some point, you give up control.
SF: And lastly, 2012… Do you believe in it? If so, do you think it will bring the apocalypse, or some type of spirirtual awakening and a new cycle of life?
JH: Yes we believe in it.
JD: IDK… I don’t think about things like that very much. I’ll just wait and see what happens. It’s hard enough for me to stay focused on things I can affect, so thinking about things like 2012 are @_@… but I hope the world ends while I’m living – I would like to watch.
HM: I hope it’s a spiritual awakening. I find this millennium to be horribly uninspired. Whenever there are predictions like this people expect them to be rapturous but I think there is a lot happening which people don’t even notice. Technology is helpful in a lot of ways but it has also desensitized the general population. I have to stop talking about this now.
Photo (top image): Sky Ferreira
Concept/Introduction: Alex Kazemi
