Hey, you’re here! Welcome :)
I’ve been kicking around the idea of creating this blog for sometime now and it’s finally happened! My hopes with this is that it gives you an inside look into our world as a fully independent band. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes and I thought it’d be cool to bring you in a bit closer to that.
I’ve got unreleased home recordings and demos that I’d love to share here with you (just promise not to leak them, okay?), as well as talking about what went behind creating some of our EPs and singles. I’ll keep you up to date on what we’re currently working on (hint: we’ve started to write our debut album!) and whatever else happens to be going on with us. Most importantly, I want to know what you want to know about us, what you want to see or hear more of, and I want to use this space to connect with you. Let’s be friends <3
Okay, let’s kick this off by talking about our latest single, Ghosts of Sunflowers.
After we released our sophomore EP, How Much Time Does It Take to Heal? we were itching to get back into the studio as soon as possible. While the record was released in 2022, it was mostly tracked in 2020 just days before the pandemic upended all our lives and lockdowns went into effect. It had been two years since we’d been in studio and we had spent most of that time isolated from each other, so we wanted to shake off the cobwebs the best way we knew how; by creating something together.
Ghosts of Sunflowers started off as a simple iPhone recording I had done back in 2017. When I write songs, I’ll try to capture the idea as quickly as possible after coming up with it. I have hundreds of these recordings. Often times, these ideas are very raw, just a verse and chorus, with a few lines of lyric to build around and some mumbling to fill in the gaps. Capturing a song that early in the creation process helps remind me what excited me about the song idea in the first place and becomes a good reference point when we start adapting it as a V/S song. We do the same thing when we write as a band too. We record everything.
I’ve always been guarded with my demos, especially with some this raw. Very few people outside my band mates ever hear these, but I trust you. We’re friends now ;)
So here is Ghosts of Sunflowers, minutes after it was thought of.
Probably not what you were expecting, right?
I remember when originally writing Ghosts of Sunflowers, I was trying to expand on a concept I had explored in a 2015 demo. That demo was Swell, which wouldn’t be recorded and released until our 2019 debut EP, Furniture Rearranged. Maybe If I’m brave enough I’ll share that home recording someday.
In a way, I see those two songs as sister-songs that tell the same story from different perspectives. We actually considered having this version of Ghosts of Sunflowers on Furniture Rearranged before deciding on another song (which eventually got dropped and replaced by Swell last minute before we left to go record in Oakland. But that’s a story for another time.)
Our original plan for Ghosts of Sunflowers was to track it like the demo version, but with a Swell type production. It didn’t work. Unlike Swell, which came to life with drums, bass, and piano, the demo version of Ghosts of Sunflowers completely lost its vibe as soon as we started adding to it. But we knew that we liked the sentiment of the song and that there was something there, so we completely deconstructed the song and worked on rebuilding it, using the verse melody as a foundation.
We slowed it down to give the verse vocals space to linger. Robert simplified the verse chord progression on bass to open up the song and lock in a groove with Gregg’s drums, and I soaked the main guitar hook in a reverb delay that had an interesting swelling and choir-like tail end. We kept tones and textures clean in the verses and brought grit into the chorus to create some juxtaposition and lift. The piano in the chorus was written by Gregg in studio. It was originally meant to sit beneath everything as support, but after hearing the emotion it brought to the chorus, we brought it up in the mix to sit with the dirty and clean chorus-y guitar.
I knew I wanted a shift in the second verse musically to match the lyric’s shift. While the lyrics in the first verse are seeking for another chance without taking real accountability, the second verse starts to shed those delusions and has a moment of self realization with the line “Do you remember waiting on the rain? / I was a fool, you were waiting for me to change.” Robert’s new bass line in that part not only creates that shift musically, but also helps make that second verse feel closer and more personal than the first.
We produced the song ourselves and tracked locally, at Sauce Spot Studios in San Luis Obispo. Our good friend, Graham Ginsburg engineered the session. It was mixed by Cal Barter, who mixed King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Big Scary, and two of my personal heroes, Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile. The song was mastered by legend Brian “Big Bass” Gardener, who mastered too many great artists to name, but include David Bowie, Snoop Dog, Tyler, The Creator, The Beach Boys, Teagan and Sara, The Story So Far, DMX, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, Travis Barker, Dr. Dre, and so on.
I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing a bit about this song. Please feel free to leave a comment below. Shoot over suggestions, some topics you want to read about, or just say hello and introduce yourself. This space is yours too!
Don't forget to sign up for our mailing list while you’re here. I promise not to spam you - we only send out emails when we have exciting news, like when there’s new music or when the next blog post drops!
Thank you for being here and for your support <3 Talk soon :)
Rico