car seat headrest

carseatheadrest

yo

Peyton Thomas

yo!

how's it going

carseatheadrest

pretty alright

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

me too!

did I remember correctly that this was interview time?

Peyton Thomas

yes that's right

i'm all set up i have a rough outline of q's i'm ready to roll whenever you are

how much time have we got today?

carseatheadrest

great! sorry to make you go through it again

as much as we need, all I'm doing today is [REDACTED]

is IMming good? I figured I'd just copy it afterwards

Peyton Thomas

yeah definitely, i think gchat is fairly easy to copy and paste?

carseatheadrest

cool

worst case I just screenshot everything

Peyton Thomas

okay so i figured we'd start with just general questions about how the project came to be, then go over the recording process in a really general sense, and then we can go song by song again, touching on more specific recording flourishes as we go - does that work?

carseatheadrest

yup

Peyton Thomas

all right so, this project has been in the works for a long time, probably longer than most fans would think - it was in your original 2015 contract with matador, right? how did it wind up in the contract? why did you want to revisit it?

carseatheadrest

Yeah, when I first met with matador I told them the plan was to revisit material for ToS, record ToD, and then do Twin Fantasy

it was just always something on the table for me, I guess. I figured it would get rereleased eventually, and I knew if that happened I would want to revisit the material in full

Peyton Thomas

Did you ever have reservations about revisiting it? Did you ever want to back out and do something else?

carseatheadrest

no, I don't remember ever questioning it. When I'm working on something and start thinking "this is shit", I just try to figure out a way to make it not shit. You can make any work of art good or bad, regardless of what the boundaries are, if you look at it carefully and proceed in the right direction.

in terms of the integrity of the endeavor, that was a moot point. If I wasn't able to record this with artistic integrity now, I wouldn't be able to make any new music with integrity either. I've either lost it or I haven't, and I don't think I have.

Peyton Thomas

Oh, I don't think so either, and I think that's evident in the subtle changes you've made to the album's narrative

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's not exactly a retread

Peyton Thomas

And I want to touch on that up front, too - you're now referring to the old version as "Mirror to Mirror" and the new as "Face to Face." What does that mean to you? What do those labels say about each iteration of the album?

(also sidebar let me know if you want me to type like this or if i should be capitalizing and using proper punctuation like an adult)

carseatheadrest

well, I think that becomes clearer once you listen to the album. But I guess it puts the focus on perspective - they're both looking at the same subject, filtered through a particular perspective, my own. And that's changed over the years

haha, it doesn't matter

Peyton Thomas

got it  ☺

what's informed the shifts in your perspective? what allowed you to move from seeing this story as a tragedy to something more complex?

carseatheadrest

I grew up!

I spent time with different people, doing different things, and my understanding of my own life has changed. I don't want to dismiss the things that were important to me in the past, but I want to reconcile them with how I'm living now

I put more voices than my own on this album, because I wanted to bring it closer to reality

the original version was kind of doomed, because it was such an isolated dream

I liked the dream enough to want to put it in a sustainable enivornment

and that meant bringing it more into the light

Peyton Thomas

yeah i noticed that - those other voices especially start filtering in toward the end of the record, as you start to proverbially "wake up" from the dream

the bit with [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

it's true - I guess part of that is just how it was structured originally, but it works

Peyton Thomas

i guess we can get to that in more when we talk about high to death & famous prophets later on

carseatheadrest

😉

Peyton Thomas

do you want to start chatting about the recording process now or was there anything else you wanted to touch on right up top?

carseatheadrest

makes sense to start with the recording

Peyton Thomas

great

carseatheadrest

so, we started in the middle of 2016, after I'd spent half a year brainstorming and charting out the new version

I knew I wanted to self-produce, but I wanted to work in a studio, so that meant finding an engineer who could help me get what I wanted

Peyton Thomas

right, right - i remember seeing an interview with you i think the day of pitchfork fest where you said you'd just had your first recording session for the new album

carseatheadrest

yeah

Peyton Thomas

how'd you get in touch with adam stilson? why was he the right person for this project?

carseatheadrest

we lucked out and found adam right when we needed to start - he'd produced a track for a band that got sent over as a potential opener for one of our shows there

it was a dense track but there was a sort of clarity to it, which is exactly what i wanted

so we got in touch and booked a session at adam's studio, Decade Studios, while we were in town

and that was when we recorded My Boy

Peyton Thomas

and that's the recording that's on the album now, right?

carseatheadrest

yeah, we did the vocals later, but the instrumental we did that day

actually the vocals for that track were hard to get right, we went through a lot of takes

it's a difficult song to sing because of the range of it

but I guess we can get into that later!

Peyton Thomas

yeah, i bet! you're hitting some high notes there

but yeah, let's just stick to recording q's for the time being

carseatheadrest

so after that session we recorded some more instrumental tracks in Seattle at Soundhouse, which we'd spent some time at for the Denial sessions

Peyton Thomas

and adam was still engineering on those sessions, right? or someone else?

carseatheadrest

Adam wasn't there for the first Soundhouse sessions, but I took them back to Chicago for overdubs, and he was present for the rest of the album

all the band stuff we did in Seattle, and all of my own parts were either done in Chicago or my own place

Peyton Thomas

oh wow so some of the vocal takes were recorded in your apartment?

carseatheadrest

I don't think I did any vocals there, but I did a lot of guitar

Peyton Thomas

got it

i imagine your home set-up has improved some since 2011, though  ☺

carseatheadrest

barely!

the main thing is that I have monitors now - until 2016 I mixed on headphones

Peyton Thomas

jesus

carseatheadrest

I use a Cyber Twin for guitar, or record direct-in

Peyton Thomas

that's really interesting actually - i was going to ask about what it was like to record the original version, what was rewarding about it and frustrating about it, but i didn't realize you were still recording parts of it using such a similar set-up

carseatheadrest

I have no idea what recording the original was like!

that part of it has always just been "work"

I don't really preserve memories of how long I spent at the mic for certain songs

Peyton Thomas

right, and it was a long time ago, so i imagine recalling any specifics might be tough

carseatheadrest

I could barely tell you anything about recording the original - I know that BLID originally didn't have bass, and I added it later

because I was recording an album for my friend Leo, and we put bass down on it, and it sounded alright

most CSH stuff before then didn't have bass

Peyton Thomas

yeah i think the first take of TF wound up on youtube somewhere and i listened to a bit of it and was surprised at the gulf even between that and the final 2011 version

*somehow, not somewhere

carseatheadrest

yeah, everything on it definitely got reworked a lot, which is also why it's hard to remember specifics

Peyton Thomas

right, right

so getting back to the new version, what parts were you most excited about updating this time around? was there anything you really wanted to "fix," so to speak?

carseatheadrest

I was excited to get the new stuff down I'd written for it

musically, some of the changes I wasn't really conscious of, because it was stuff we'd played live for years

someone just pointed out that some of the vocals at the beginning of BLID are rhythmically different, which I hadn't remembered, because I was just doing them the way I'd been doing them at shows

Peyton Thomas

of course, yeah

carseatheadrest

it was mostly about getting the whole of it down again

Peyton Thomas

yeah, and you mentioned you spent most of the process just learning the songs as a bad and figuring out how to get specific portions just right

how did the band's collaboration aid in updating the album? where were their contributions most valuable?

e.g., the jam at the end of NYI, i know that's something you talked about quite a bit

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's a great jam

for most of the songs we worked out a backbone that was just ethan, andrew, and seth - they'd be out in the recording room, and I'd be in the control booth

I think Twin Fantasy was the only one where it was just me for most of the track

that, I think, goes with what I was saying earlier about wanting to bring it closer to life

Peyton Thomas

absolutely, yeah

it just makes sense for the narrative

and for those group sessions, were you recording ethan and andrew and seth's portions separately or all in one room, all at the same time, live?

was it the blue album way or the pinkerton way

in other words

carseatheadrest

most of it was live - they did some overdubs

I think it was easier to keep a rhythm when it was all of them together

Peyton Thomas

that makes sense - the arrangements are more complex this time around

carseatheadrest

(sorry, I gotta hit the bathroom, brb)

Peyton Thomas

i mean, of course they are, but

haha no worries

carseatheadrest

back

Peyton Thomas

hello!

okay so i think the last general recording question i wanted to ask was just, what music from recent years has been most influential on the sound and feel of this new version?

i know we talked a bit about frank ocean & blond being similar to what you wanted to accomplish

carseatheadrest

yeah, but more in terms of overall goals -

I was really inspired by blonde as something that took influence from a lot of different sources, and made something unique with it

but my sources were way different from FO's, so there's not a lot of overlap in vision

I wanted to make a rock record that didn't really feel like it belonged to an era in particular, and that could also be perceived as modern

I guess other than Pink Floyd's records, there's not a lot I can think of that capture what I wanted to capture

in terms of structure, it's laid out more like a hip hop record

Peyton Thomas

yeah i know you've talked about kendrick being a big influence on the way you write & structure your work as well

carseatheadrest

yeah - again, someone who did it the way I wanted to do it, in a totally different genre

something that compiled sound, lyrics, and structure to convey something on a thematic level

yeah, The Wall is the only thing I can think of that really achieved that for rock

Peyton Thomas

i was thinking The Monitor as well but i don't know if titus andronicus is a touchy subject or not

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

and that one's not concerned w/ sounding modern as much as hitting a very specific kind of historical mood

understandable

well this is maybe a good place to segue into my boy, actually, because it's the one song on the record that sounds the most Of An Era

and very intentionally so

why did you want to use that 60s pop sound? the nod to the be my baby drum intro?

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's pegged down more to the 60s vibe

that was the first genre I really connected with, I guess - that era of music

so, making a record that in a way deals with ideas brought up from a very young age, it made sense to start that way

Peyton Thomas

and in a way those records really wrote the script for the next 50 years of teenage pop songs, so they're massively influential on how we think & write & make music about young love

carseatheadrest

maybe - that tradition goes way back

I think there's less purity to it now, but I guess that was always a false concept

Peyton Thomas

(you can slice teenage & young from that sentence but i think there's something about the firstness of it all)

carseatheadrest

I do like the idea of something that was designed for mass consumption that is supposed to be a very pure thing

music is intangible, so it lends itself well to ideas of purity

Peyton Thomas

and then by contrast beach life-in-death is... i don't know about "impure," necessarily, but it's this big sprawling uncontainable epic coming right on the heels of something that's really simple and pure, essentially just one sentiment repeated over and over

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's way nastier

haha

Peyton Thomas

falkjdfklsd good word

i love BLID being bookended by my boy and stop smoking btw

carseatheadrest

yeah, and that was one where I laid a lot of it out at home, whereas my boy was finished in the studio

I had to dissect it a lot and make all the different parts come out

Peyton Thomas

so where did the compositional inspiration from? if my boy is rooted in the sound of the sixties, what are the precursors to beach life-in-death? are there any?

carseatheadrest

the first time around, the main sources were probably The Past is a Grotesque Animal by of Montreal, and then the sort of longer meandering work that Destroyer did on Looter's Follies

it was all sort of united under a shitty lo-fi aesthetic

Peyton Thomas

yeah i noticed there was much more distinction between the various sections of the song on this go round - the "lots of fish left in the sea" bit really blasts off, whereas before the transition there was just flat

carseatheadrest

a lot of that came from playing it live

obviously we needed to juice it up more

so it became more of an organic thing

Peyton Thomas

yeah i can imagine - figuring out how to make a song that long sustain itself and keep an audience interested is a Feat

carseatheadrest

I think I was mainly excited by the idea of something like Destroyer, making these long poetic songs with different sections

I got kind of burnt out on that after a while, and I guess so did Bejar

Peyton Thomas

yeah ken is... wildly different from his usual style

carseatheadrest

but TF was definitely supposed to be a work in the vein of poetry

Peyton Thomas

so what poets were the most influential there?

(also, sidebar, have you ever read anything by richard siken)

carseatheadrest

I don't know if there was anyone in particular, I was studying romantic poetry at the time - it was just the feeling of these long texts that were all about getting you into a particular world

nope

I really don't track on modern poetry, because it seems like mostly assholes write poetry now

Peyton Thomas

falkdjfklasjfklsldak

carseatheadrest

I stick to media forms that are popular at the moment

Peyton Thomas

yeah your english lit background really comes through on these longer tracks and BLID is no exception

okay well i am going to give you this richard siken pdf because i really think you'd like his work http://library.globalchalet.net/Authors/Poetry%20Books%20Collection/Richard%20Siken%20-%20Crush%20(Yale%20Series%20of%20Younger%20Poets).pdf

anyway okay back to The Task At Hand

why did you want to release this song as the first glimpse of the new twin fantasy? what did you feel it would convey?

carseatheadrest

well actually I'd wanted NYI to be first, and I wanted to announce it in December, but matador wanted to wait

we had a video locked in for NYI, so I asked if we could release BLID without any press

Peyton Thomas

just beyoncé it

interesting

carseatheadrest

I think it's as good a barometer as anything - if you don't like the production on BLID, you're probably not going to like the album

Peyton Thomas

that makes a lot of sense - i think it definitely boosted confidence in the project among the die-hards, at least based on initial response

carseatheadrest

idk

Peyton Thomas

and why did you incorporate that verse from your ivy rewrite?

carseatheadrest

I think no one knows what to think right now, which is preferrable

Peyton Thomas

oh true, keep people on their toes

carseatheadrest

well, it allows a chance for people to actually hear it as it is

if you've determined you like or don't like something, you don't actually know what it is

you just know how you feel about it

it's only in that liminal period where you're able to actually examine a thing

Peyton Thomas

yeah i often don't listen to singles even for artists i really love because i prefer to just... hear everything in context, a lot of the time

carseatheadrest

that's hard to put people through when you're making something, but it has to happen

Peyton Thomas

yeah it's just a necessary step of the process and i can see that you're really structuring it so that people are getting a variety of the styles and moods here

did you want to talk about the ivy verse at all or shall we move on to stop smoking

or anything else re: BLID

carseatheadrest

the ivy verse happened because I knew I'd have to rewrite that verse, because I couldn't sell the original lines - I wasn't in the right place

and I liked the original content I'd come up with for covering Ivy, and it seemed appropriate

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

okay - anything else re: BLID you wanted to talk about, or should we move on?

carseatheadrest

I can't think of anything

Peyton Thomas

okay great

so stop smoking, this tiny little ditty coming right after BLID - what is that doing on a structural level? what's its function in the narrative?

carseatheadrest

that song is pretty much as simple as it sounds, I wrote it one go

so naturally, it gets more complicated when it resurfaces elsewhere, but the song itself is exactly what it says

I recorded this one at home again, because it didn't come out right in the studio

Peyton Thomas

right, that makes narrative sense, too - going back to what you said about my boy being mostly you

i actually saw people speculating that you were going to turn stop smoking into a long epic band jam

carseatheadrest

yeah, no such luck

Peyton Thomas

i guess we can talk about the arc of the smoking metaphor & the callback in high to death here, or we could wait til we're discussing high to death in more detail?

carseatheadrest

I probably won't talk much about it at either juncture!

I think it's something that you have to tap into on your own time

Peyton Thomas

no worries!

so... sober to death, then?

carseatheadrest

yeah, what about it?

Peyton Thomas

you told me that you think this song ends in a bad place, and i can definitely see what you mean - do you want to elaborate on that at all?

carseatheadrest

yeah, I regret writing parts of it - I like the end, but that's about it

it's a fine song, but it's kind of toxic

Peyton Thomas

right

carseatheadrest

so unsurprisingly, people have latched on to it

Peyton Thomas

i feel like now, as an adult, i can look back and appreciate how i've grown beyond that way of thinking (because it IS a really effective portrait of that sort of dysfunction), but i feel like if i'd heard it when i was seventeen i would have just swallowed it whole

carseatheadrest

yeah, and maybe I haven't learned anything, because it's the same deal with Drunk Drivers

Peyton Thomas

even though it's something you come back to and correct later on, especially in this version

carseatheadrest

even if you try to write about something in a balanced way, sometimes focusing on certain ideas at all is the wrong decision

I don't know if I've corrected it in this version, but I've amended it

Peyton Thomas

i don't know about that! i mean in drunk drivers the refutation of that toxic thinking is built right into the text

yeah, amend is probably a better word than correct

carseatheadrest

sure, but people don't care

to put it in movie terms - if you show someone getting murdered, you can put it in a positive or a negative light, but at the end of the day, you're showing someone getting murdered

I'm feeling less and less as I go on that if I made a movie, I would ever want to show a murder

that's something that gray folie did very well in Drop Out, which is a comic about suicide

Peyton Thomas

that's a great illustration of it, yeah

god i haven't read drop out yet, my friend rachael's been begging me to

carseatheadrest

it's great

but what's important is that it's always pointing towards life - it deals with the subject without romanticizing it, I think

Peyton Thomas

yeah and i can see where, in this version, you're tipping the scales away from the latter, so to speak

you'd mentioned before that if you could have left any song off the new version, it would have been this one - do you still feel that way?

carseatheadrest

well, I don't know, there might be a murder in this film, but at least it's properly acknowledged this time

idk, it's hard to see the whole without it

now that it's finished, I can't really worry about what is or isn't on it

honestly I've been thinking more about the live set for the past several months

Peyton Thomas

yeah this is going to be a huge year of touring for you, huh?

i mean, not that last year or the year prior weren't, but i imagine there are different considerations this time around

carseatheadrest

maybe not actually that huge - the first half the year we're starting out small

it's a bigger group, but I don't think we'll have too much trouble

we were playing on stages that really needed filling out, so I'm glad to have Naked Giants with us

Peyton Thomas

yeah i'm excited to see what the seven-piece ensemble is like!

and yes mike told me that [REDACTED] in toronto which is like, triple the size of the venue you guys played the last time you were here

carseatheadrest

yeah

it's difficult because rock music is really meant for smaller venues

the amps are supposed to be in your face

but after a certain point you're playing in halls that are designed for classical music

so you have to figure out how the fuck you're going to make it sound good

Peyton Thomas

right - i know some bands try to get around that by doing 2-3 nights in one smaller venue but that's not always tenable

carseatheadrest

I wouldn't mind doing that in the future

Peyton Thomas

i hope you can!

do you know what the setlist is going to look like at all? i know there's some speculation that you'll be playing twin fantasy from start to finish but idk if it's really That Kind Of Tour

carseatheadrest

yeah, but it's a surprise

it's gonna be totally different from the album

Peyton Thomas

ooh okay

well i won't pry

carseatheadrest

it'll be good

Peyton Thomas

oh i'm sure it will

do you want to get back to the song by song now or is there any other tour-related stuff you wanted to chat about

i guess while we're on the subject

carseatheadrest

I think I've said all I can say about the tour

Peyton Thomas

okay great

so then, nervous young inhumans, i think this is the biggest sonic update of the whole album - why the new sound? why the stylistic changes?

carseatheadrest

maybe it was Adam's influence - he has a very 80s schooling, so it's an interesting contrast with my own influences

so we ended up with more synths and drum pads this time, but obviously none of it is very 80s

Peyton Thomas

i've seen a lot of people comparing it to hot fuss-era killers

carseatheadrest

the vocal line changed because the original was a real drag to sing, you can hear I'm struggling with it on the first version

I hadn't anticipated it, but fair enough - I prefer killers comparisons to the strokes

because I actually heard the killers growing up

Peyton Thomas

okay i DON'T GET the strokes comparisons i don't get it AT ALL

but that's neither here nor there i guess lmao

carseatheadrest

I think it has more to do with the kind of people who picked up Denial than it does with the music

idk, the strokes ended up being a very interesting band - 80s comedown machine is a really great album

Peyton Thomas

oh good point

carseatheadrest

but I have zero interest in their earlier cool-dude rock

the hits are really good, but the albums are weak

Peyton Thomas

i haven't spent a lot of time w/ them to be honest but yeah good hits, weak albums would also be my assessment

carseatheadrest

I don't like a record that does the same thing 12 times

Peyton Thomas

and actually i wanted to talk about the "people who picked up denial" point a little bit - there are still folks out there who ONLY know you from denial, and i'm wondering how you feel about what their reactions to TF will be

carseatheadrest

which is why I like comedown machine - it's doing something different on every track

Peyton Thomas

not everyone is a deep cuts collector

carseatheadrest

well, I'd imagine they'd like it, because it's a good rock album

Peyton Thomas

ok i might check out comedown machine

but i mean fill in the blank and my boy couldn't be more different as openers

carseatheadrest

maybe people who came in last year and decided they knew everything about me will be offended by this release

but if they actually want to hear good music, I don't think they'll have much to complain about

Peyton Thomas

harsh burn

carseatheadrest

idk, there's some slower stuff in Denial that serves as precedent

Peyton Thomas

yeah and the longer songs certainly

carseatheadrest

I think this album actually seems more left-field to people who are familiar with the discography than it would be to people who only know Denial

Peyton Thomas

how do you mean?

carseatheadrest

that's just what I've seen so far

most of the negative reaction to it has come from people who feel they "knew me better" than the casual fans

because i guess it amounts to a personal betrayal

Peyton Thomas

right, right

carseatheadrest

but obviously, none of them were around when I actually released twin fantasy the first time

Peyton Thomas

just the garden variety "i knew them back before..." shit

carseatheadrest

I have no idea

I can't related, because if any artist I'd known in 2011 making self released stuff said they'd gotten an opportunity to revisit a work from that era, I'd be incredibly psyched

but I guess that comes from more the point of view of a creator, because I've seen too many artists burn out entirely to take it for granted that anyone can keep producing shit for more than 4 or 5 years

some people seem to find that expiration date actually desirable, because it matches the amount of time they're willing to be invested

Peyton Thomas

yeah i can imagine your perspective on this as a creator is quite different from those who don't make music or art of their own

carseatheadrest

so folks who are tearing our posters off the wall now, it really doesn't matter why it's happening, it's just "time's up" for them

and that's ok, you shouldn't linger where something isn't pleasing to you

but I could do without the doomsday judgement

Peyton Thomas

for what it's worth i do think that once the new version has some time to marinate people will cool down a bit

carseatheadrest

yeah, me too - it's hard to communicate that now, before it's out

there's an inevitable period where there's a lot of agitation

but I wouldn't have made it if I didn't think that in the long run people would like it

(brb again)

(also lmk if you're running short on time)

Peyton Thomas

no i'm fine - the only thing i have on my docket today is visiting my grandma for dinner, i got lots of time

carseatheadrest

back

awesome!

Peyton Thomas

okay!

so getting back to NYI, the last question i had there was about the monologue

carseatheadrest

oh yeah

Peyton Thomas

i think the original monologue was actually one of the most effective parts of the album, a real springboard for the beginning of bodys, and i'm interested in hearing how you arrived at the new version

carseatheadrest

was there anything in particular?

process of elimination, i guess

there were a bunch of different ideas I had prepared, and none of them worked

Peyton Thomas

do you want to talk about those early ideas at all?

carseatheadrest

they were more in the vein of the original - more like direct analysis

but I didn't feel it worked at all with the aesthetic of the jam under it, or with the new album in general

so eventually, I came up with something much more stream-of-consciousness

it's kind of unhinged, but I think that fits better

Hitchhiker came out the last month of mixing, when I was working on this track, and I was listening to it a lot

the jam had kind of a Neil Young feel, so I was like - what would he do here? Certainly not what I'd had written.

I dunno if he'd do what I came up with either, but it's closer

Peyton Thomas

WWNYD

carseatheadrest

yeahp

Peyton Thomas

i can definitely see the influence there & i also think it's a reflection just of you having grown up between the original version and the new

i mean even just the tone you use to speak off the cuff here vs. the original stumbling over your words

carseatheadrest

yeah. that was something that I thought a lot of people would seize on as being compromised, but I was surprised - most people "got it" right away

maybe it was time for a new monologue

Peyton Thomas

yeah and of course since "galvanistic" isn't present in the chorus anymore it wouldn't have made any sense

carseatheadrest

yeah, for a while the monologue started with pointing that out, the loss of the word

but after a certain point I was just like, "eh"

better not to be endlessly self-referential

Peyton Thomas

ohhh interesting

and was there any particular reason for altering the chorus, while we're on this point?

carseatheadrest

yeah, because I found out galvanistic wasn't a word!

Peyton Thomas

omg

carseatheadrest

I'd fucked it up, the adjectival form is 'galvanic'

I'm surprised no one ever pointed that out

Peyton Thomas

omg i just googled it's galvanic

carseatheadrest

so I wasn't about to preserve that

Peyton Thomas

yeah doesn't quite have the same ring to it

that's so funny oh my god

carseatheadrest

it's also usually better to have a chorus that you don't have to google to understand

Peyton Thomas

cogent point

now is there anything specific in the monologue you want to break down

a friend of mine filled me in last night on "painstar" being [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

correct

and bits of it are from murray wilson, which some people already picked up on

Peyton Thomas

right you mentioned murry wilson when we talked before

carseatheadrest

I had the first part of it written down, and was thinking of using it as part of a music video, possibly for BLID

it was right after I'd seen The Evil Within, which I watched several times and had some weird dreams about

Peyton Thomas

oh yeah you were posting about that recently

carseatheadrest

that film is about being possessed, and so I wanted to do something to convey the insidiousness of possession, how it can creep in

you're most susceptible to evil when you don't think you're capable of it

Peyton Thomas

and so where does that fit into the broader arc that the narrator is on?

carseatheadrest

well, they're evil!

haha

Peyton Thomas

because right after this we're abruptly into the happiest streak of the record

or at least, the most upbeat

carseatheadrest

it's true, it makes it different from the original, more of a continuous narrative -

well, actually I don't know

I was going to say that the original monologue was more retrospective, putting the rest of the record in past tense

but I guess I only think that because it was one of the last songs recorded

Peyton Thomas

oh huh

i'd always thought it was recorded chronologically

carseatheadrest

so I guess it doesn't really break character as much as I imagine it to

no, it was all over the place

Peyton Thomas

i made a lot of incorrect assumptions actually, i've realized through this whole Process

carseatheadrest

fair enough, you've only seen the end result

Peyton Thomas

no and i think on this version there's more of a sense of the narrator's missteps and culpability

carseatheadrest

yeah, the tension that it sets up is different

there is more of a violent energy that goes directly into the next tracks, but it's sort of overridden

Peyton Thomas

right and it complicates bodys & cute thing in a really interesting way

carseatheadrest

yeah, or it makes the complications more explicit

Peyton Thomas

i write young adult fiction and so much of it is having to suspend my own like, grown-up emotional intelligence to get back to a place where i had less of a sense of how my choices affected others, or what my decisions could lead to

carseatheadrest

yeah, those sorts of narratives seem like they must be very difficult to write when you're not in that mindset

but the masters can do it!

Peyton Thomas

☺

and that's sort of the mirror i see here, with the 19-year-old monologue vs. the 25-year-old's monologue

anyway! i think those were all the q's i had about nyi, did you want to move onto bodys?

carseatheadrest

let's do it

Peyton Thomas

okay, so so so

you said this was one of the very last songs to come together - what made it so challenging?

carseatheadrest

oh, just the musical nature of it

it's got all these moving parts to it, but I wanted it to sound like a pop song at the same time

and the guitar riff, on an objective level, sucks -

if it's not treated exactly right in production, it sounds like the wimpiest shit

that was why it was always one we were pulling out and then taking out of circulation for shows

because it just was not juicy

(we've now reworked it live so it sounds great)

Peyton Thomas

(stoked to hear it live btw)

carseatheadrest

it's a lot of fun with the whole group

Peyton Thomas

i remember you made that one post about the various things that influenced bodys and one of them was lcd soundsystem

carseatheadrest

but again, quite different from the album version, which is more of a studio whack-job

Peyton Thomas

and i can see how, you know, just like that one-note riff that carries all my friends, there are specific difficulties w/ the bodys guitar riff for similar reasons

the drums are very very different too in the new studio version i noticed

carseatheadrest

yeah, that's the same deal, where it's production trickery that carries the song

yeah, the drums are just 'more'

Peyton Thomas

they're pogoing around

in stereo

carseatheadrest

because it was always a dance track, and it needed to hit like a dance track should in the updated version

and the original recording of those drums was kind of fucked up, there was some issue with the snare

so for most of the song, there's at least two snares on top of each other

but they're blended to just sound like one thicker one

Peyton Thomas

and then just re: live versions of these repetitious dance tracks, i recently got to see LCD live for the first time (on account of i was fourteen or whatever when they were at their peak, and i was still listening to hannah montana) and it really was night and day from the recordings, so much new life there

carseatheadrest

I caught them at a festival - the dancier stuff was really top-notch

[REDACTED]

anyways, with bodys, I'd forgotten we actually recorded another version that was too fast -

we'll have to go back someday and mix that one

Peyton Thomas

bodys speedrun

carseatheadrest

but we went back in in Chicago and I made that drumpad beat that starts the song, and we did it at a slower tempo

then we went back and recorded the band on top of that

Peyton Thomas

actually, speaking of speed, one thing i noticed about your delivery both in the original and this one is that you sing most of the song very rapidly but when you hit "don't you realize..." you slow down every syllable, talking about how afraid you are of the passage of time

carseatheadrest

I didn't notice that at all

Peyton Thomas

is that intentional or am i just reading into things here

carseatheadrest

must be another live thing

we played that one live ever since I wrote it, so it's totally warped

Peyton Thomas

okay interesting

i just wondered if it's significant b/c it's really the only place in the song where you're holding notes for any amount of time

carseatheadrest

I feel like that's how it was in the original

but maybe I'm thinking more of my own impressions of it

Peyton Thomas

yeah yeah sorry if that was unclear, i did say "in the original and in this one"

carseatheadrest

oh woops!

Peyton Thomas

no worries

let's talk about the actual themes for a second though

carseatheadrest

yeah, that was intended to be a break

as far as the more fluid phrasing contrasting with what came before it - it's more like a harmony

Peyton Thomas

right, right, i can see that

carseatheadrest

I think it was kind of put together part by part, so that sort of thing emerges on the way - I'd record backing parts that would become leads

same sort of deal with the breakdown in Los Borrachos

Peyton Thomas

yeah it scans that way

carseatheadrest

man, I should record that one again

Peyton Thomas

god the ending of los borrachos is so great

but okay, okay, themes

so, fully stop me if you don't want to talk about this, but [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

yeah absolutely

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

I think of this song in the context of the line from NYI - "most of the time I use the word you, you know that I'm mostly singing about you"

what's implied is that there is some vagueness as to who or what's being addressed

and I think that bodys is probably the vaguest song on the album - it's the least specific "you"

and more about a fantasy

Peyton Thomas

that line comes across so so much more clearly on this version, btw - it barely registered for me in the original and now i think it's almost an encapsulation of the whole project

carseatheadrest

yeah, for sure

Peyton Thomas

and yes i remember you described bodys as "the point where the fantasy gets too real"

carseatheadrest

yeah

and we were able to kind of acheive that on a production level

it's a very manic, sort of hyperreal state it goes into

I'm probably most proud of the production on that song

Peyton Thomas

and then slipping into this kind of acoustic dreamstate for the bridge, which was a great choice

& yes manic is a good word for it

carseatheadrest

Twin Peaks left a 12-string in Decade which we ended up using on a bunch of stuff

Peyton Thomas

andrew's drumming especially

oh neat

it's a really lovely little flourish

carseatheadrest

and then it was a little too Foo Fighters, so we cut up some synth to make a sort of Won't Get Fooled Again part over it

Peyton Thomas

oh yeah i noticed the boosted presence of the synths right away

we have to be careful about publishing this or else stereogum's gonna hit us with the WILL TOLEDO HATES DAVE GROHL PERSONALLY headline

carseatheadrest

I think that'd hardly be the first target

Peyton Thomas

fjaljfklasdjfklasdjl okay okay moving on

i think? i'm ready to move on to cute thing unless there's anything else you want to go over here

carseatheadrest

I just wanna say that my favorite part of Bodys is the low note in the first and second choruses

it hits you with a bunch of mid-range guitars, and then there's this deep synth swell that comes up and totally changes the space

Peyton Thomas

hang on let me pull up the chorus so i can hear exactly what you're talking about

carseatheadrest

it got a bit deflated in mastering, but I'm still happy with it

Peyton Thomas

idk if i have the final masters

carseatheadrest

it might actually be better in the master you have

Peyton Thomas

okay wow yes got it

it's a good chorus

carseatheadrest

😀

Peyton Thomas

def more rewarding after the build-up

so! okay. cute thing.

first of all: [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

I think I actually want to leave that reveal for when the track drops

Peyton Thomas

understandable

at any rate i'm named peyton james after [REDACTED] so i appreciate the reference

carseatheadrest

haha, didn't expect that!

he's a master

Peyton Thomas

he is!!

i want to talk about the themes & its role in the narrative in a general sense, but before we get to that can i ask about the ana ng bit? i know TMBG are an extremely important group for you and i was just wondering if there was any neat story about getting in touch with them for clearance.

carseatheadrest

there's not a big story - I haven't been in touch with them personally, but I heard that they're fans, which is great to hear. we're sending a few copies of the record to them.

(obviously they said yes)

of all the groups I listened to growing up, they turned out to possibly be the best role models

they did what they did, took a positive approach to it, didn't get fucked up on drugs or ego, and never burned out

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

and it seems like they're still going strong

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

new album coming out in a week

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

lol

carseatheadrest

I like that tmbg wasn't shy about being uncool

Peyton Thomas

right!

i'm not a superfan or anything but i still love that video they did with homestar runner

carseatheadrest

yeah, they popped up in a bunch of different places, just from working with so many different people

I'd like to be that way

Peyton Thomas

yeah it must be nice to be able to prioritize that kind of off the cuff collaboration

but all right, in a more general sense, if bodys is the moment where the fantasy gets Too Real, what is cute thing?

carseatheadrest

cute thing is just pure swagger

it's just energy, nonsense lyrics on top of a rock song

which actually, a lot of the best tmbg songs are like that

but it goes into something more pure at the end

Peyton Thomas

yeah there's that tmbg energy coursing throughout before we even hit ana ng

carseatheadrest

which we actually just integrated into the live set - we've never played the "I am love" part live

Peyton Thomas

i read some review of lincoln (probably pitchfork but idk) that said something like, this is what would happen if punk rock was motivated by love instead of anger, and that's sort of how cute thing feels to me

mood-wise

and that's interesting about the outro - was there any particular reason you hadn't been including it previously?

carseatheadrest

that's probably a good way to put it

I think it was just an arrangement issue

with a four-piece it would have been hard to make the final section feel as powerful as it's supposed to

(it sounds great now)

Peyton Thomas

i'm so excited to hear it!!

carseatheadrest

😛

Peyton Thomas

and we talked before about the importance of sustaining joy in music

and i think i asked kind of a leading question saying "our culture takes sadness more seriously than happiness" and you disagreed

carseatheadrest

yeah, mainstream rules usually trivialize sadness

and that lens is definitely applied to a lot of modern music that deals with negative emotions, as if it's a trend

but if you listen to 60s pop music, like 70% of it was "sadboy"

Peyton Thomas

brian wilson emo godfather

carseatheadrest

but those artists would all go back and forth, there would be the happy stuff intermingled with the sad stuff

and I think it's that coexistence that makes that era of music powerful

and that makes sense writing about love, because it can go either way, but it's always extreme

Peyton Thomas

i can agree with that for sure - i guess what i was trying to say is that it seems harder to garner critical recognition without being willing to put your deepest sadnesses on display, and that goes hand in hand with the kind of trivialization/fetishization you're talking about

yeah and it's that same coexistence that makes the narrative of TF work so effectively

carseatheadrest

yeah, the critical circuit is rooted in anti-pop ideals, or at least it has been until recently

now everything's getting intermingled again, which is good news for musicians

Peyton Thomas

absolutely yes

and i think even just the presence of that critical trend makes me wary of "sad albums" being contrived or like, god forbid, artists feeling like moving toward healing and growth would deprive them of their critical reputations

carseatheadrest

I think it's just hard to be recognized regardless of what you're doing - it's all about who sees you and what they want to pin you as

yeah, and if you're willing to be pinned, it means you're not going anywhere

but there just isn't a valid reason for pinning yourself down - if you're making sad music, it's something you should want to escape from, because presumably it means there's a hole in your life

and there's always going to be a hole in your life, but that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do about it

Peyton Thomas

exactly, exactly

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

sorry i just wrote out and deleted a very long and very off topic thing about how mad i am about the music press's treatment of lil peep

but essentially yes there's an unfortunate tendency to suggest that good art can't exist without suffering and i think songs like cute thing are vital in countering that viewpoint

carseatheadrest

I think artists existing is the most important way to counter that viewpoint

meaning, existing as people who grow

I was amazed to get out of the 'damaged artist' idolization bubble and realize there are artists who do that, and continue to make good shit

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

but yes i think wrecking the "damaged artist" stereotype is a net societal good and i'm glad you're working to counter it

carseatheadrest

yeah, it serves a clear purpose

Peyton Thomas

this is like the most depressing possible discussion we could have had about cute thing

sorry about that lol

carseatheadrest

but I never considered twin fantasy to be serving a purpose like that - for me, music in itself has been the emotional release

if it's conveying something that's getting through, regardless of what that thing is, it's a moving experience

Peyton Thomas

high to death is probably the most blunt manifestation of sadness in the entire piece

and also one of the songs here that's been altered most from its original state

carseatheadrest

kind of - I think the core of it is totally the same

Peyton Thomas

i guess i just mean there's much more clarity

carseatheadrest

then I haven't done my job!

Peyton Thomas

i mean in a literal sense ajflkdsajklfjksld

as in, you're not being swallowed up by the instrumental anymore

carseatheadrest

it is more spacious

Peyton Thomas

the thicket of external voices at the end there is much more difficult to immediately decipher

carseatheadrest

its place on the record is kind of interesting, because it's sort of a song I was conceiving of long before

just in terms of wanting to do something hazy and sort of ominous

Peyton Thomas

yeah you mentioned it was the first one you started writing, if my memory serves me correctly, which really surprised me

carseatheadrest

I don't think any of it was actually written, it was just a concept

I'd heard the song "Once We Walked In The Sunlight" and read "The Yellow Wallpaper" around the same time

and that period was just kind of marked by a continuous sense of building dread

Peyton Thomas

dread of what?

carseatheadrest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvV2_Y3SOqM

of everything - of life beyond what I knew

Peyton Thomas

(thanks for the link!)

carseatheadrest

I didn't know what my options were, to put it simply

I was afraid of living

any sort of transitional period, I get that way - I had an intense phase of anxiety when I was starting elementary school, everything terrified me

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

I remember not being able to listen to "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" when it came on the radio - it was a hit at the time

whatever emotion it was conveying, it was too intense for me

Peyton Thomas

oh man

carseatheadrest

and that was a tie-in to armageddon, the movie where an asteroid is going to destroy the earth

Peyton Thomas

god yeah it's kind of a remarkably grim song isn't it

carseatheadrest

so it all just seemed like a time when the integrity of the world was compromised

I felt that way again going into college, and coming out of it

I haven't felt that way since, which I'm grateful for

Peyton Thomas

i'm glad  ☺

carseatheadrest

anyways, I guess High to Death ended up being an expression of mourning for an entire world

Peyton Thomas

those transitional periods are such a brutally difficult time for everyone but i'm always surprised by just how few resources there are to aid people going through those times, or give them any sense of external perspective

carseatheadrest

well, it's kind of hopeless, because it's all about being caught up in your own head

Peyton Thomas

that's how it feels, yeah - like this sadness you're feeling is so much broader than just this one experience

carseatheadrest

it is true that the external perspectives that are most readily available to kids in that position is the sort of anti-development stuff, people who stayed broken

but I don't know how much of that is lack of resources, and how much is being attracted to those narratives

Peyton Thomas

sometimes it's more appealing (or at least, easier) to want to lean into those feelings of lostness rather than actively search for a way out

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's also hard to know what searching feels like, because a lot of the time it just means waiting

and that's not really a romantic subject to write about

Peyton Thomas

yeah and in those transitional times your life feels completely defined by uncertainty

carseatheadrest

yeah

Peyton Thomas

and i think it's possible and necessary to give yourself room to feel hopeless and unsure and let it pass with the knowledge that stability will find you eventually

and high to death is... a step in that process? i think?

carseatheadrest

yeah, a lot of my music looks like that

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED] captures it really potently i think

how'd you find that, by the way?

carseatheadrest

I love that piece, it might be my favorite part of the album

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

it might have been, if anyone could hear it!

Peyton Thomas

i'm glad you did find a place for it and i think it does help to establish that throughline

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

apparently not

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

just listened to I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing again

it's still disturbing!

Peyton Thomas

it really is? it really is

carseatheadrest

steven tyler really did not want to fall asleep, it was a life and death situation for him

Peyton Thomas

but doesn't he know that if he stays awake too long he'll just die anyway!!! steven!!

carseatheadrest

hah, it's like the arcade fire song on a whole different level

Peyton Thomas

it's funny that we're talking about this b/c early on in my novel there's a scene where my protagonist loses his virginity and it's just a deeply unsatisfying and awkward experience the whole way through and i pointedly specify that "i don't wanna miss a thing" is playing on the radio the entire time

to add to the grotesque mood

carseatheadrest

NICE

Peyton Thomas

sure hope aerosmith doesn't sue me

carseatheadrest

I wonder how many people are gonna come out of the woodworks to share their scenes of visceral upset with this song

anyways, famous prophets?

Peyton Thomas

it seems like that would be way overdue like we've gone far too long as a society without admitting how inherently disturbing this song is

yes sorry famous prophets

so i feel like the most important shifts in the album's narrative occur here

carseatheadrest

yeah, it all comes together in that track

Peyton Thomas

and a lot of that hinges on the incorporation of the new bible verse but you've also [REDACTED]

w/ a killer high note to boot

so do you want to start with the bible verse or the new lyrics

or are they part and parcel of the same thing

carseatheadrest

which is the high note, you mean the [REDACTED]?

Peyton Thomas

no no i mean, [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

oh, the [REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

right before you lead into the [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

this all was what got cooked up at the beginning of 2016, before we started work on it -

I decided to [REDACTED], and that meant shifting things around so the [REDACTED] could be a [REDACTED]

so I wrote new lyrics for that part

Peyton Thomas

and you'd been performing those new lyrics live throughout 2017, right

or, at least a couple of times

carseatheadrest

the bible verse I was inspired to include after seeing it recited in full in a japanese film - I need to figure out what it was

yeah, they got fleshed out live

ah, it was Love Exposure

Peyton Thomas

reading the wiki now

carseatheadrest

it's kind of a strange soap-opera comedy, but there's a great scene right in the middle where the protagonist's love interest unexpectedly screams the entire bible passage at him

I'd heard parts of it, but never the whole thing, and it hit me in a powerful way

so it seemed appropriate to try and pass it on that way

Peyton Thomas

can you tell me more about how it landed for you, hearing it in the context of the movie? i'm having a hard time piecing the narrative together from this truly wild plot summary on wikipedia

carseatheadrest

oh, it's impossible to put it together outside of the film itself

I guess it's something that you have to see in full to understand...

just like Twin Fantasy!

Peyton Thomas

☺

got it!

i was just interested in hearing how it came to be because i had a very specific emotional response to it that i'm sure wasn't at all what you intended

just based on my own experiences of having the worst and most stereotypical closeted gay evangelical christian teenagehood possible

carseatheadrest

yeah, I didn't intend for it to be used in that context

or I guess the intent was to reclaim it as what it was actually supposed to convey

Peyton Thomas

mm that makes a lot of sense

carseatheadrest

most christian texts have a lot of good to them, they just get used by bad people

Peyton Thomas

they sure do

at any rate i think it's a really unique usage & reclamation of the passage

and in the context of the narrative it's so much more forgiving of all the involved parties than the original verse you'd used

which i figured you would want to strike out of the remake anyway, for obvious reasons

carseatheadrest

yeah, forgiveness is the key difference between the two texts

it's old testament/new testament stuff

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

right, yeah

hm i'm not sure we've touched on everything worth discussing re: famous prophets but i've kind of gone through all the questions i'd prepped

so unless there's anything else you wanted to emphasize here we could go on to the final song?

carseatheadrest

I guess it's probably better to leave it relatively uncovered, so people don't know too much about it beforehand

Peyton Thomas

good point

okay so then, this last song here... it closes the circle in a way, or it completes the arc from this very pure expression of "we won't be alone" to "when i come back you'll still be here"

carseatheadrest

yeah, the drum beat comes back

I guess those things probably emerged musically, at first - maybe most of the "pure" stuff did

Peyton Thomas

which comes from like... "loss of innocence" is tacky, but maybe more, having lived through a difficult and complicated experience and having some trepidation about throwing yourself open again

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's a cyclical 'advance and retreat'

Peyton Thomas

bringing the drums back is a nice touch

carseatheadrest

the "when I come back" line is from a very early song

that was all about regression and fantasy

and that one also closed off the album it was on

so I guess that's sort of my MO, emotionally - I can only be open and vulnerable for short periods

and with any luck there will be an album that comes out of it

Peyton Thomas

sorry i'm just trying to figure out how to word something

carseatheadrest

and I did go through that entire emotional arc again while remaking it

Peyton Thomas

i'll bet

i honestly can't even fathom what it's like to put this much of yourself into your art, art that you know other people will be consuming en masse

carseatheadrest

I was very high-energy putting the pieces together, and by the time we were doing final mixing sessions, I was feeling so miserable about it that I changed the ending of the album

Peyton Thomas

the ending of the album being [REDACTED]? or more than that?

carseatheadrest

no, the very end

[REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

[REDACTED]?

carseatheadrest

but by the time I was putting the final pieces together, I said "fuck it, it's going to end on [REDACTED]”

no, [REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

oh, sorry

carseatheadrest

I'm talking about just [REDACTED]

Peyton Thomas

right, gotcha

the [REDACTED]

carseatheadrest

anyways, I guess it's nothing major

Peyton Thomas

no, no, it's major enough

carseatheadrest

but once again, I didn't end up making quite a complete picture

there will always be something unresolved to it

Peyton Thomas

of course

is it still true that you don't see it as a tragedy?

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's just a good album

I think it's pretty open ended

but I'm not mournful about anything

Peyton Thomas

the open ending is more realistic, i think

we never really get neat narrative conclusions in our real lives

carseatheadrest

yeah, sometimes you get catharsis, though

I think there is a breakthrough on this record that wasn't on the old one

Peyton Thomas

i would agree, yes

carseatheadrest

but everyone's got to experience that on their own time

Peyton Thomas

incredibly valuable stuff, catharsis

carseatheadrest

I enjoy it

Peyton Thomas

it's interesting seeing how younger people respond to the narrative of TF vs. how i see it, how my older friends see it

while we're talking about people experiencing things on their own time

carseatheadrest

yeah, it's a text

what you get out of it is going to change over time

that's been true fo rme

Peyton Thomas

there are a few stories i make a point of coming back to periodically just to measure myself against the narrative & the characters and see how i've grown since the last time i read it or saw it

and i can see twin fantasy becoming one of those pieces

carseatheadrest