Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Location: Little Italy restaurant, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2010)
Interview date: 27.10.2010
Wednesday evening. All day long, just one thought on my mind: after three years, the cycle of return and the birth of that extraordinary feeling of musical eroticism is on the cards once again. Right in the heart of Ljubljana’s alternative scene, in the temple of musical opposition to the conventional world: Gala hala in Metelkova. The reason for the joy is the return of the American legionnaires of post rock, Red Sparowes. After a three-year break, the sails of creativity are billowing again in a fresh wind. The new messages have ripened, and it’s time to sow them among the audience once more. And we got to talk about it first-hand again with the sowers, the careful tenders of the universal stream of unspoken words. Sitting down in front of the mic this time were an old building block of the old entity that is Red Sparowes, bassist and multi-instrumentalist Greg Burns, and the young blood, guitarist Emma Ruth Rundle. Old and new shook hands, and from that contact a new, unstoppable feeling was born. Before the show, in the warm shelter of the Little ltaly restaurant, we talked about the band’s new face, their ideas, and an airing-out of both mind and body.
RockLine: Let’s start with the fact that you’ve put out three albums so far, and this is your third visit to Ljubljana. So you must have some expectations, since the Slovenian crowd is anything but a stranger to you.
Greg Burns: You mean, how tonight’s show will be different from the previous ones?
RockLine: Exactly!
Greg: I think our music will help with that. On our latest record it moved forward more than it did on the first two, and we’re definitely aiming to keep that trend going. Tonight we’ll play a fair bit of new material, but we don’t intend to neglect the older stuff. So you’ll get a combination of old and new, with the emphasis on the newer stuff, of course. Some songs will be familiar to you … The visuals will be a bit different too.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Another fresh thing is that tonight we’ll be introducing you to quite a few bands from Los Angeles.
RockLine: That rich harvest from your club scene, gravitating around The Smell in L.A., is something fresh and unusual in our club scene. How come you picked your own countrymen, even bands from the same neighborhood, for tonight’s lineup at this mini Bubin festival?
Greg: It’s honestly just a coincidence that we’re in the same place at the same time, touring Europe. We almost played with No Age in London too, and since we’ve known each other for a while (we played with their previous incarnation, The Vibes, as they were called back then), we’re already well acquainted. So there were no doubts at all. Being friends and having a shared history was a good starting point, nothing more. But I’m definitely looking forward to tonight’s show.
RockLine: So after sharing the same stages in L.A., you’re now jointly deflowering Slovenian stage boards?
Greg: That’s right! I’m kind of tormented by curiosity, though, about how Slovenian listeners will take tonight’s show and musical cocktail …
Emma: Because the lineup is anything but similar or homogeneous … The thing is, our L.A. scene is laced with all kinds of influences, just like you have the same situation here. It’s parallel worlds and a microclimate, which is totally normal.
Greg: The mixing and this musical “crossover” will be something experimental, and we’re looking forward to that, because every time we come to Europe we play for the same audience. So any change is welcome.
RockLine: So today we get neo-progressive folk psychedelia, a pinch of lo-fi punk, post rock, experiments and a few not-so-unusual shortcuts. Do you think it all fits together with your concept?
Greg: If I start from the plain fact that I genuinely love No Age, say, both as a band and as individuals, that’s what tips the scale. What matters is who we want to play with and are ready to play with … Maybe some people won’t like what they hear, and others will, but I can say for certain that I’ll give myself over to the feeling and enjoy playing with them, and I can’t wait to see how the other sets turn out either.
Emma: The others are great and incredible too …
Greg: I haven’t heard all of them myself, but I know you have …
Emma: They’re incredible! All I can say is that the other two names on the bill, Head Of Wantastiquet and Abe Vigoda, are a bit unusual, so I hope the audience manages to adjust and reset their receptors in time and can enjoy what they hear. It’ll be interesting.
Greg: It reminds me of a show in L.A. in 2005, I think, where we played with The Vibes and The Burning Brides, plus a local band called Desperation. Every band was different and special in its own way. The Mae Shi were on the bill too. The lineup was random, but the audience liked the variety, and that’s what I’m betting on, and leaning toward tonight too.
RockLine: Let’s focus on your latest studio release, the album The Fear Is Excrusiating, But Therein Lies The Answer, which is the reason for tonight’s visit. Compared to the previous two records (At The Soundless Dawn and Every Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun, ed. note), there’s a difference in the label and the lineup, and also in the sound of the record, which definitely strikes me as more optimistic. How did the record come together, and what tangle of ideas are you unspooling this time?
Greg: We expanded the band … (points to guitarist Emma)
Emma: I joined the band in the early stages of making and writing the record in 2008, and I wouldn’t dare talk about the earlier differences from anything but a fan’s point of view. I came into the band as a fan, and when you listen, you can pick out the differences from the early releases. Maybe you could call it optimism, but it’s more an attempt to push past the musical frameworks we had until then, enjoy playing, and grow in our own individual and collective ways. Genre frameworks are always there, and if we place ourselves in the post rock genre, we have to admit its reach is pretty limited. There’s a lot of orientation in the songwriting …
Greg: We ourselves strive to keep pushing boundaries and widening our musical playground. Interestingly, we actually talked a lot about what we wanted to do and where to steer our creativity and our emotions, and we built a story and expectations of what the end result should be. It was supposed to be less dark and, as far as our tastes and sonic identity go, more optimistic too.
RockLine: The sound, a little lighter and more open, is what I’m focusing on. The titles are shorter and less explicit too, and they don’t deny listeners the chance to interpret what they hear for themselves …
Greg: The titles are definitely more paragraph-like and, I agree, the record is more open and left up to your own interpretation. Of course we had a story and a red thread woven through the whole thing, and if you put all the titles together, the guidelines are there.
RockLine: The story is powerful once again, but what did you want to imprint on listeners’ souls and ears with this record?
Emma: The record lays bare human nature, humanity’s desperate attempts to find solutions to our problems, and the driving force behind it all is fear. Fear pushes us to look for answers, whether they’re right or not. That’s what we were playing with. People will always strive to act that way and offer solutions that aren’t necessarily tied to reality. Whether we’re sticking Band-Aids of belief in God on our souls, faith that we’re not alone in the universe, or whatever else …
Greg: So in some parts we can go astray, and even if we’re wrong, it’s part of our process of evolution. Detours temper and shape us, culturally and biologically.
Emma: So the concept isn’t exactly easygoing and doesn’t offer comfort, but the music is lighter. The concept is in opposition to the sound, in other words. In our desperation, in a moment of hopelessness, we’re ready and willing to reach for any kind of support that seems real and comforting to us at that moment. When we’re in trouble, that’s how we process our options for escape.
Greg: Despair is only one outcome of that kind of behavior. It can be positive, because it gives birth to solutions and gives us the strength to face our demons. As I said, the whole thing is pretty dark, but we consciously thinned out the sound and poured a little sweetener, a little happiness, rays of hope into the cup of wormwood, even though the final outcome may be pretty fatal and cataclysmic. That’s human nature.
RockLine: The triptych is complete, and after three, let’s say, gospels, there’s still some room for variation in the future. What’s the next logical step Red Sparowes will take on the next record, which you may already be writing?
Emma: I personally think that as a band, you’d be hard pressed to find a more different combination of souls from different winds. There are plenty of differences. We all have our own musical backgrounds, our own musical pasts, as musicians and as listeners. And as five parts of one whole, we perform individually and create as a combination of all that, and I think that in creating like this and leaving room for individuality, we all enjoy it and feel it strongly. I think that makes everything undefined. All the genres and everything we did before are just part of the mold. Even when we’re maybe no longer Red Sparowes, certain threads will keep running forward, and as Red Sparowes we’ll only ever do what makes us happy and complete.
RockLine: Since you’re still a bit of an unknown to our audience, you can start right there. What’s your musical background?
Emma: I played in quite a lot of local bands in L.A., from folk and rock to something lighter and more cheerful.
RockLine: And what describes and defines you as a musician?
Emma: I don’t know if I could answer that question … (laughs)
Greg: Can I describe her? Emma actually has one of the qualities we were leaning toward when choosing: as a musician and as a guitarist, she can play hard and decisively in her own gentle way. Her personality comes through in her playing. In L.A. you’ll find a sea of musicians who lack that. They’re technically outstanding (some jazz players, say), but something’s missing. Emma will keep developing musically, and already has, but what matters is the harmony of heart and mind. That’s what was key for us. We tried quite a lot of people who are fantastic as characters, but that combination didn’t come through in their playing, and vice versa. With her, the fusion was perfect.
Emma: I haven’t had such a lovely compliment and description in a long time … (laughs)
RockLine: Going from there, can we talk about the collective and the concept of what Red Sparowes means to you?
Greg: The idea of the band was always that it’s an open platform for our personal expression, and the listeners are part of that experience too. There’s a lot of dynamics and change, and I’d bet the changing will only intensify over the next few years. It’s just a channel that makes it easier for us to insert ourselves and plug into the music. Clinging to one rigid point was never our goal. A single anchor isn’t enough for Red Sparowes. The next record could be quite different from this one, because pushing boundaries is what I pointed out earlier as our defining factor. Making music is conditioned by what feels good, and what pleased us a couple of years ago can be very different from what suits us right now.
RockLine: Can we say that the sky is the limit?
Greg: That’s right! Sky is the limit!
RockLine: Another staple is the question about visions of the future. What are you aiming for in the short term, and what’s in store for the more distant future of the band and of you as individuals? What weaves the dreams and the future path of Red Sparowes?
Emma: You can definitely expect a fourth studio album much sooner than the three years that passed since the last record and our third release. You’ll get the fourth record in less than a year from today. That’s our bold prediction!
Greg: So next year is a realistic deadline.
Emma: As a band and as individuals we intend to mature and complement each other, and a lot has already been done. It shows in the sound, and very visibly in the way the visuals spill onto the stage screen.
Greg: We’ll be traveling around Europe for two and a half weeks, playing various summer festivals here. Maybe as early as spring … I don’t know if right here in Slovenia, but our caravan will definitely be wading through Europe.
RockLine: Here in Slovenia we’re looking forward to another visit, and maybe even a fourth landing with a fourth record!
Greg & Emma: Us too, and thanks for your trust and interest.
RockLine: Let’s wrap up tonight’s interview with a closing message, some final but by no means last words for our readers.
Greg: There are no words to describe our joy and honor at being able to keep coming back here and meeting new people who, in this everyday rat race, are willing to tear off a piece of their time and listen to our music. That means a lot to us, and I’m truly grateful for the trust you’ve shown, and as long as that trust is there, we’ll keep gratefully and persistently weaving our stories in the future too. Thank you! Sincerely, thank you!
Photos: Nina Grad
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