Passing the Torch … er, Lightsaber
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Rated PG-13 {4 out of 5 stars}
It’s time to give George Lucas his due. He has done pretty well for himself after all. And yes, I know there are a lot of you nerds out there who are still bummed that the lackluster prequels were more hype than substance (hey, I’m one of them too), but let’s cut him some slack. He created Star Wars for crying out loud! Chewy, Han, Leia, Luke, Vader, frickin’ Yoda … each one is a household name and captured the imaginations of many an American youth, myself included. Lucas’ amazing characters no doubt nurtured the creativity of J.J. Abrams as well, who has successfully bridged the Star Wars franchise into a new generation with The Force Awakens.
The film is grounded in a delightfully simple premise: Where in the universe is Luke Skywalker? Many years have passed since Return of the Jedi, and though the Empire is no more, the Dark Side of the Force has licked its wounds and is on the rise once again, this time under the guise of The First Order. Resistance forces led by General Leia Organa (yes, formerly Princess Leia, played by the incomparable Carrie Fisher) are all that stand in The First Order’s way of toppling the Republic.
Luke, the last known Jedi, has disappeared for mysterious reasons, and both sides are furiously trying to find him to no avail. However, clues to his whereabouts surface on an otherwise inconsequential desert planet of Jakku. A map to Luke’s location has been entrusted to a ridiculously adorable droid (BB-8), who happens upon a scruffy-but-gorgeous scavenger (Rey, played by newcomer Daisy Ridley) with a fragmented past, spawning an action-packed space caper of epic proportions.
Sound familiar? That’s because it is. The parallels between The Force Awakens and Episode IV: A New Hope are pretty plain to see. Abrams and his screenwriting partners Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt seemed to be content with sticking to what worked, and the good news for them is it still does. Seeing Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) reunited after all these years on the big screen was a huge treat; a visit to an alien bar, loaded with colorful characters, hearkened to that famous scene in the Mos Eisley cantina; watching the Millennium Falcon soar at warp speed and take on TIE Fighters, even though it looks like nothing more than an interstellar hooptie, still leaves me with the feeling that anything is possible.
But it’s the new parts that made The Force Awakens such a joy to watch. Ridley’s Rey is a heroine who’s easy to root for, a perfect mix of vulnerability, humor and bad-assery. She’s well-suited to create a new icon for a new generation of fans. Joining her is another relative unknown, John Boyega, who takes us beneath the helmet of a Stormtrooper as Finn. Taken from his family as a youth, Finn was stripped of any identity, and cloaked in the iconic white armor of The First Order, but he never lost his humanity. After witnessing his army commit a horrible atrocity on Jakku, Finn helps Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) escape from The First Order’s clutches. Boyega is hilarious at times in his role as a burgeoning, lovestruck young hero who’s in a bit over his head.
No Star Wars movie would be complete without a strong villain, and The Force Awakens is no exception. Adam Driver dons the dark cloak and mask of Kylo Ren, a wielder of The Force who has been seduced by the Dark Side. Driver’s voice is almost devoid of emotion as Ren; however, his expression and demeanor creates a character easy to sympathize with. During an epic showdown against Rey in the snow, the two actors create a struggle that not only feels like a broad battle of good versus evil, but something much more intimate and personal.
Abrams and company thankfully didn’t decide to make a darker or grittier relaunch of the Star Wars franchise. The Force Awakens is something you can take your kids to, that both young and old will enjoy. It follows the the blueprint Lucas laid out in the original trilogy, and maybe even improves upon it. Still, none of this would’ve been possible without the man himself, so thanks, George, for everything.
For as busy as his 2014 was, you’d think Richmond, California-based rapper Iamsu (stylized IamSu!) would be content to kick back and enjoy a little downtime. That’s most certainly not the case.
In fact, when Submerge spoke to the young, rising hip-hop star, he was gearing up for a flight halfway around the world to Australia to play his first-ever string of dates in the Land Down Under, hitting five cities.
“I’m really excited,” he said as we began our phone conversation. “I heard they love hip-hop over there.”
This year, Iamsu’s travels have taken him coast to coast and around the globe, with even a stop in Paris along the way.
“Man, it was amazing when I went to Paris,” Iamsu said of his Oct. 3, 2015 performance at the Be Street Festival. “It was a great experience. I can’t wait to go back. There was a lot of energy. They just appreciate rap music, hip-hop, in a different way. It was really cool.”
Iamsu’s recent bout of globetrotting has been in support of his most recent release, and his first studio album, Sincerely Yours, released in May 2014. The album features 15 seamlessly woven together tracks that are refreshingly sparse, with a laidback feel that’s perfectly suited to Iamsu’s Cali-cool cadence. It also boasts guest appearances from Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz and Bay Area stalwarts E-40 and Too $hort. Rolling Stone ranked the album among its “40 Best Rap Albums of 2014.”
Though Sincerely Yours was technically his debut, Iamsu has been releasing mixtapes at a torrid rate since 2010. Beginning with Su! the Right Thing, he has put forth nine mixtapes, including 2015’s Eyes on Me, which is available for digital download. Among those releases were Kilt and Kilt II, which will lend their name to Iamsu’s forthcoming sophomore studio album, Kilt 3, which he said should be ready “early next year.”
“The album, as far as music goes, is complete. I’m just in the process of … gathering all my media content, which is something I’m doing different,” Iamsu said of the anticipated release. “With the last album, I didn’t have all my videos done before I released it. I was doing stuff after the release date … I just wanted to get all my stuff done and give everything to the people all at one time.”
He said that continuing the Kilt series was meant to recapture some of the feelings he had earlier in his still young music career.
“It’s definitely an evolution from those two. It’s me revisiting that feeling that I had,” Iamsu said. “When I recorded those first two mixtapes, the mindset on the music, just on determination, was so high. That’s what I’m giving people on this Kilt 3 is just a lot energy. It’s more so about feeling my presence.”
Upon returning from Australia, Iamsu will hit the familiar roads of California, including a stop in Sacramento. In the meantime, you can learn more about this burgeoning Bay Area rap star in the following interview.
You’ve done a lot of touring this year. Are you looking forward to winding down a little bit or do you enjoy being out there on the road?
I’m definitely not looking forward to winding down [laughs]. I might go crazy …
Before you released your first proper studio album, you released a bunch of mixtapes since 2010. Are you one of those people who are constantly writing and working on ideas?
Absolutely. Every time I get a chance to get in a studio and work on ideas, I do. This is just my passion. Hopefully I can get in a studio in Australia and catch that vibe.
Have you been in contact with any artists or producers in Australia that you’d like to collaborate with?
Some people had hit us up about if we were looking for a studio, so I’m going to see if I can get in that studio.
Do you have material you’re working on, stuff that you’ve written, that you’re looking to record?
Nah, I’m more of an in-the-moment type of writer. Sometimes I’ll write stuff on my phone—just the beats or whatever—and record it later, but I’m more so in the moment.
You’d released a bunch of mixtapes before 2014, but Sincerely Yours was dubbed your debut album. How was recording that different from your experiences making mixtapes?
It wasn’t too different. I had a lot of freedom with that album. I did something more alternative with that project, because I was really trying to showcase my artistic capabilities, so that was really cool … It was a great time. It allowed me to do a lot of different things.
One of the things that struck me about Sincerely Yours, even through the intro and interludes, was how the tracks seemed to flow together so well. It felt like listening to one long song with a bunch of different movements. Was that something you really wanted to work on when you were putting it together? You’d said you were looking to make an artistic statement.
Definitely. I’ve got to give a lot of the credit to some of my boys who helped me put the album together Kuya Beats, P-Lo and Chief. They helped me put that album together, because I was on the road. I had an overall concept, but they were the ones who helped me put it together.
What was the overall concept you had for Sincerely Yours?
It was an open letter to my fans. I wanted to make it like an audio book—just free-form thoughts and me just communicating openly to my fans, because I was in an interesting headspace at the time. I really had to express that. I feel like I got that all off my chest.
I was really digging the title track. The lyrics seemed very open and honest. Could you talk a little bit about how that song came together?
That was just where my head was at at that exact moment. When I listen back to it, it puts a smile on my face, just because I see how much I’ve grown up since then … To be honest, I was afraid of success. I wasn’t afraid of failure, because I don’t believe I’ve come all this way to fail. I was afraid of all the things to come, like traveling overseas and going on TV, you know what I’m saying? Because all this stuff is destined, and I wasn’t really sure if I was prepared for it at the time.
Do you think you’re more prepared now?
Definitely, and that just comes from maturity. There are a lot of things that happened over the past year that have made me grow up, you know what I’m saying? My grandmother passed this year, my uncle passed this year, and that was really hard. That really made me face reality, you know?
You’ve gotten a lot of attention from some major media outlets like Rolling Stone and even the New York Times. Did that help contribute to your fear of success? You hear a lot of cautionary tales of people approaching stardom and they can’t handle it. Was that where you were coming from?
It was definitely both. A lot of cautionary tales. It just comes from maturity, man, I had to realize I’m not scared. I had to use that fear to propel myself and not hold myself back.
The Bay Area has such a rich hip-hop history with guys like E-40 and Too $hort, and you’ve gotten to work with both of them. Did they impart any wisdom on to you as far as having a long career in music and helping you mature as an artist and just as a professional?
Oh definitely. I had a few talks with E-40, and he gave me a lot of knowledge as far as taking my time with music, and Too $hort as well. They’ve had probably the longest running rap careers, so I’m in good company.
Do you feel any responsibility, being from the Bay, to carry that banner, so to speak, of being the new generation?
I’m just walking my own path, and I want to represent the Bay Area, period. I hope to take it as far as they took it. So yeah, I want to carry that torch.
Catch Iamsu live at Ace of Spades in Sacramento on Dec. 4, 2015. Show Banga and Anjali World will also perform. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased through Aceofspadessac.com.
My parents never sent me away to camp when I was a kid, and I’m grateful to them for that. I don’t deal well with sleeping in bunks or bugs, and I assume every vine I see is poison oak, ivy or sumac. But if I had gone to camp when I was a kid, which was way back in the ‘80s, would my experience have been anything like what is portrayed in David Wain and Michael Showalter’s Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp? These are questions journalists must ask themselves.
The answer is most likely a resounding no, because the events depicted on this brand new Netflix Original series are completely bonkers.
The series is a prequel to the film Wet Hot American Summer, which was something of a cult hit, though poorly received. Released back in 2001, Wet Hot American Summer featured many young actors who went on to become stars, such as Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler and Elizabeth Banks, all of whom return for First Day of Camp.
The series, like the film, boasts a huge ensemble cast with numerous ridiculous plotlines, and Wain and Showalter are adept at handling them all. The duo first received recognition back in the ‘90s as part of MTV’s groundbreaking sketch comedy show The State, which featured irreverent humor with a surrealist twist. All these years later, Wain and Showalter’s absurd sensibilities seem as fresh and wickedly sharp as ever, as First Day of Camp would attest.
Having seen the original film isn’t a prerequisite to enjoying the series, but it would help, seeing as all of the adult actors, though they are 15 years older, reprise their original roles of teenage camp counselors at Camp Firewood in rural Maine. The year is still 1981, and there’s a lot of crazy shit going on in this patch of New England forest. Everyone asks the questions: Will Andy (Rudd) ever hook up with Firewood’s most babelicious counselor Katie (Marguerite Moreau), even though she’s dating that preppy douchebag Blake (Josh Charles) from rival Camp Tigerclaw? Are doofy but lovable Coop (Showalter) and mega-fox Donna (Lake Bell) really boyfriend and girlfriend? Why have Ben (Cooper) and McKinley (fellow State alum Michael Ian Black) been spending so much time together?
But Camp Firewood faces threats far greater than raging teenage hormones. The camp has fell upon hard financial times and is in danger of closing. To save it, camp director Mitch (H. Jon Benjamin) has has to strike a deal with Xenstar, an evil super conglomerate that is now dumping toxic waste in the woods. Only head counselors Greg (Jason Schwartzman) and Beth (Janeane Garofalo) can do anything to stop it. They have their work cut out for them, though, as the Xenstar conspiracy goes deeper than anyone could have ever dreamed, reaching all the way to the president himself, Ronald Reagan (wonderfully lampooned by Showalter).
There’s also a camp musical that has to be cast, rehearsed and performed before day’s end. Ben and his “girlfriend” Susie (Poehler) have enlisted renowned Broadway actor/director Claude Dumet (Mad Men’s John Slattery) to find two diamonds in the rough to assume the starring roles. In the process, a love triangle forms (actually a love quadrangle once McKinley enters the mix).
Elsewhere, mysterious-yet-alluring new counselor Lindsay (Banks, who doesn’t get enough credit for her comedic abilities) has been snooping around and asking questions about the haunted shack that just so happens to be in the middle of the campgrounds. She’s been asking questions about the reclusive rock star who’s said to inhabit the ramshackle dwelling. Just what is she after? Why won’t she leave well enough alone?!
If it sounds like there’s a lot going on, that’s because there is. Showalter and Wain have a lot of story to tell in just eight half-hour episodes and a lot of characters at their disposal. Through the first two installments of First Day of Camp, the series feels a little directionless, and it seems as if plot is going to take a backseat to bizarre hijinks, but by the third episode, after Mitch’s shocking transformation is revealed, the series becomes delightfully plot driven (without sacrificing the hijinks).
First Day of Camp is a series that will probably benefit from multiple viewings, after your initial binge-watching, as the comedy is so deadpan and fast-paced, that you’ll probably miss something the first time around. Though it was slow to get going (which is a bit of a drawback considering its short length as TV series go), once it does, it packs quite a punch, and the extremely talented cast (which also includes Jon Hamm as Reagan’s top assassin and Christopher Meloni as the camp chef with a shady past) seems to be having a blast. You most likely will, too. Now I wish my parents had sent me to camp as a kid. Maybe it’s not too late … MOM!
You’ve probably encountered someone like the character Creed Bratton from The Office. He’s that guy you don’t really know but you see every day. He seems innocuous from a distance, but there’s something about him that keeps you from getting too close. Then maybe one day you’re at the snack machine, pushing up against the glass because that Snickers bar you just purchased got stuck on the spiraling metal wire that holds the candy in place. Suddenly you hear an unfamiliar voice from a very familiar face. Perhaps he’s trying to make bizarrely humorous quip about your plight … or maybe he’s equating your struggle with the candy machine to society’s battle with the covert forces of the Illuminati. Whatever he said, for a moment, you were time twisted from your mundane life to some dark, twisted form of Narnia.
The man Creed Bratton is only slightly like the famous character he portrayed on one of the past decade’s most defining sitcoms. However, in many ways, he’s way more fascinating.
Bratton, a former student at Sacramento State, backpacked overseas for a few years before returning to California to start a band with Warren Entner called The 13th Floor. By 1967, the band changed its name to The Grass Roots and went on to record a few popular radio hits including “Let’s Live for Today.”
Though he got his start in music, it was acting that Bratton actively tried to pursue while he was in college.
“I was always planning to be an actor,” says Bratton, who studied drama while at Sacramento State. “Music was just something I did. I didn’t know until I went to school that everyone didn’t know how to play music. I just thought everybody does this, you know?”
At a young age, Bratton (born William Charles Schneider, later changed to Chuck Ertmoed when his mother remarried) had an ear for music. He first took to the trumpet before picking up the guitar.
“My grandparents had a country-western band called The Happy Timers,” he remembers. “When I was a little kid, I’d sit down and watch them play. I used to go down to Long Beach from the mountains and be with them for two months in the summer … I’d listen to stuff on the radio and just figure it out by ear.”
By 17, he was working professionally as a musician, but after he left The Grass Roots in 1969, his artistic career hit a bit of a snag, or as he put it in our interview, “35 years of thinking I’m not going to get anything going.”
Over that time, though, he never gave up. He spent his time “working, writing, going to class,” he says until, eventually, he once again struck pop culture gold.
“Now I have my second wind as it were, and I’m off doing these shows again,” Bratton says, gearing up for a California tour that will bring him back to Sacramento. “I’m having a great time.” Submerge had the pleasure of speaking with Bratton about his surprising and remarkable career as an actor and musician.
It’s amazing what the music scene in the late ‘60s meant to American culture, and it still has an effect today. What was it like for you living through that time as a musician?
At the time, it was very innocent. The pot wasn’t anywhere near what it is today. It was very mild. We experimented with stuff. For musicians at that time, it wasn’t looked down upon. You were doing what you were supposed to do. You were going to the other side of the veil, finding little chestnuts and bringing them back and writing them down and playing them for people. That was the deal. Some people didn’t come back. I was one of the lucky ones who … What were we talking about?
Badda boom! Drum roll!
It was the ‘60s. It was the best bite of the apple. There was no AIDS. It was free love and pot and everyone was fucking each other and painting flowers on their faces. It was pretty cool. And then it got weird in the ‘70s, but from ‘66 to the early part of the ‘70s, it was just fantastic.
I saw a quote on IMDb that was attributed to you where you said how you did a lot of acid, but never had a flashback.
Exactly! I paid good money for that acid. I deserve a flashback [laughs]. That’s just a joke, though. I would be scared to death if I had one those! I don’t even need that. All I have to do is be locked in a room where they’re smoking that pot from nowadays, and I’ll be crawling the walls [laughs]. I think Louis C.K. says it best, the best way to do drugs is not do them for a while, because when you do them it’s really amazing.
I know, I’m waiting until I retire so I can smoke a joint one more time …
When I’m doing acting and trying to memorize lines, I just can’t do it. It messes with my memory too much. It’s nice to do when you’re on vacation and you’re hanging out with somebody on the beach. That would be great. When it comes to work and stuff, it just interferes.
I know a lot of people know you from The Office, so I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about that. I thought it was really cool that you pitched your character to the show’s creators.
I actually shot an audition tape. I recently found that audition tape, actually. I thought I had lost it. I was working on Bernie Mac, I met Ken Kwapis [director for both The Bernie Mac Show and The Office] and we became friends on the show. When I heard about The Office, I contacted him. He said that they were already cast, but he’d try. He talked to Greg Daniels and said I was a very interesting guy and a musician, and they put me in the background. I left Bernie Mac to take a shot at doing this. I was just starting to get lines on Bernie Mac, but my gut said do this [The Office]. Within one week, I knew there was so many talented people that I had to do something. I wrote an hour’s worth of stuff, like what would happen if someone had stayed on drugs and stuff and ended up at a paper company and created this character. I went to my buddy Joe Moore, who was an A.D. on Bernie Mac, and with his help, I adlibbed a bunch of stuff and picked the best out of what we did and gave it to Ken Kwapis, who was still directing on the first season, and Greg Daniels. The second season came in, and in the first or second week, they threw a script on my desk and said, well, everyone thinks you’re really funny, so here you go. It was a 6-and-a-half-page scene with Steve Carrell, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is it!” It was scary. After it aired, I came in on a Friday, and we aired on Thursday, I saw Rainn Wilson and John Krasinski and they gave me a big bro hug and said I’d knocked it out of the park. That meant so much to me. The next thing you know, I became a series regular. I tell actors all the time, if you’ve got strengths or weaknesses, use them. Make a video and use that as your audition.
The character became such a cult figure, too.
It was amazing how people loved that character, that crazy guy. People still get disturbed when I’m talking to them, and they’re like, “You’re not that Creed guy,” and I’m like, no! It’s close to how I talk and stuff, but still not me, obviously.
I think part of it is that everyone knows someone like that in their lives, that peripheral character who you don’t know much about, but he says that weird thing that you can’t believe just came out of his mouth.
[Laughter] Well the writers took that thing … I would just laugh at the table reads seeing some of the stuff they came up with for me. They did a lot with a little with that guy.
It’s been a couple years now since The Office ended. How has it been winding down from that?
Oh man, I missed it. I remember after the hiatus period, like three months or so, I found myself one morning driving in my car and I was starting to head back to the studio where we shot. I was like a homing pigeon, you know? I’ve done some independent movies, like Band of Robbers, which turned out really well and it will be playing film festivals. I also did Grace and Frankie for Netflix and recorded some new stuff. And of course I’ll be coming to Sacramento. That starts off my California tour. … I want to give a big shout out to Duane Heglie, can you put that in there? He’s my buddy from college and high school. We went to Sac State together.
Your most recent album came out in 2011. Are you working on new material?
I have six solos and four with The Grass Roots. I think about the time I hit a dozen, I’ll make one that really clicks. But right now I’m working on a pilot called Feather Peak that we’re trying to get greenlit. I play a character who lives up in the mountains. He’s a caregiver, but he writes music too, so I’ve been writing songs for the show, and they’re really good! I’ve been doing three or four of them in the show now. They’re all brand new. I’m going to be recording them pretty soon in Los Angeles.
A character who lives in the mountains who plays music, that sounds pretty close to home.
He’s a caregiver who has this ability to realize that when people are dying they hold on to things that keep them from passing on to the other side in a tranquil way. He’s able to facilitate this. … It’s kind of like Northern Exposure meets Touched by an Angel meets the Creed character [laughs], which is kind of an interesting concept if you think about it.
Duane, if you’re out there, this one’s for you. Join Duane and surely many others when Creed Bratton plays live at Harlow’s in Sacramento on Aug. 11, 2015. Ngaio Bealum will take the stage to open the show. Tickets are $15 in advance and can be purchased through Harlows.com.
**This interview first appeared in print in issue #193 (August 3 – 17, 2015).
There’s been a hole in my heart since Entourage ended. Sure, the last season was total garbage, and when you look at the whole of the series, well, it wasn’t like life-affirming, high-brow entertainment. It was just a bunch of dudes being dudes, but on a level of dude-dom that the rest of us could only hope to achieve. I have to admit that I had very low expectations for the Entourage movie (weren’t most of Vinny Chase’s films flops?) but maybe it’s for that reason that I enjoyed this movie so much.
We pick up where the final HBO season left off. Mega movie star Vincent Chase’s (Adrian Grenier) impetuous marriage to a reporter he barely knew has ended after nine days, but he ain’t even mad. The couple decided they were better off friends, so Vince is throwing a big-ass party on a boat off the coast of Ibiza. Of course his big brother Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) and his two best friends—his loyal lackey turned tequila tycoon Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and his manager Eric (Kevin Connolly)—are invited, and everyone’s having a blast. But no one can party forever. Not even the Entourage boys. Enter Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), Vince’s Hollywood power agent, who’s coming out of retirement to head a movie studio, and he’s got an awesome project greenlit for his favorite movie star. The catch? Vince wants to act and direct this one. SAY WHAAAAA …
Fast forward a few months. The project is way over budget. The studio is going to have Ari’s head if he doesn’t deliver a blockbuster, and Vince, normally the poster child for confidence, is beginning to doubt himself. One thing’s for sure, though, the movie—an effects-laden, dystopian future flick dubbed Hyde—will never even get finished if the boys don’t get more money. Ari has to travel to Texas to woo the film’s investor, Larsen McCredle (Billy Bob Thornton), to dig deeper into his cavernous pockets even though no one’s even seen a frame of this thing. Larsen agrees, but only if his flunky son Travis (Haley Joel Osment) gives Hyde a favorable review. Meanwhile, the love of Eric’s life, Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui), is about to give birth to their child, and are they together or aren’t they together, but they’re going to Lamaze class together and yadda, yadda … How will all this turn out for the guys?
In a word: Awesome. That’s how everything eventually turns out for the guys. They drive fancy cars, go to fancy parties and have sex with even fancier women, and not just once in a while, but on the regular. Sure, careers and reputations are on the line for these characters, but there are never really any dire situations. If Hyde ends up being a flop, the guys would probably just hop in their sleek new Cadillac convertible and drive back to Turtle’s beachside mansion and cry about it. No one’s going to end up living on the street begging for money.
The stakes are low, but fortunately, the entertainment value is high. Entourage plays fast and loose for the most part, allowing all the show’s signature characters their moments to shine without getting bogged down in unnecessary plot points (though it would have been nice to see bigger contributions from Rex Lee’s Lloyd and Rhys Coiro’s Billy Walsh, both of whom always shined in supporting roles in the series). Of the big five, it’s no surprise that Piven is most on-point as Ari, who in the film struggles against reverting to his tendency for sudden outbursts of work-stress rage that nearly ended his marriage. Also, Dillon provides some of the film’s more memorable moments, as Johnny comes to grips with playing second fiddle to his baby bro while still hoping to carve his own niche in Hollywood.
For fans of the show, the movie will basically feel like a 104-minute bro hug, but those who missed the cable series will find a lot to enjoy. An interview segment early on with Piers Morgan (one of the film’s many celebrity cameos, my favorites being Jessica Alba and Armie Hammer) gives a quick rundown of everything you missed while giving a wink and nod to Entourage fan boys, such as showing the infamous Mentos commercial that introduced Vince to Ari, and flashing a picture of Eric working at the Sbarro in Queens.
Entourage is basically Sex and the City for post-teen man-boys, so what you see is what you get. But for what it’s worth, the former’s first foray to the big screen was more successful than the latter’s. High five, bro.
Lights hits the road running on the strength of her latest album, Little Machines
Touring is difficult in the winter—even for a Canadian. Just ask Lights (born Valerie Anne Poxleitner), who set out on the road during a record-breaking cold snap for a good portion of North America. However, when Submerge caught up with the vivacious singer/songwriter, she was nestled in the relative warmth of the Lone Star State.
“We’re in Dallas,” she enthused. “I can’t complain. It’s a little rainy, but it’s the first warm day.”
Not only was it warm…ish, but she was also getting geared up for a sold-out show.
“The crowd here in Dallas has always been good to us,” she said. “We’ve been touring here for so long, we have a really wicked fan base here. Dallas has always been really fun to play.
A warm reception is nothing new for Lights. She reported that a stop earlier in the month in Minneapolis yielded similar results. But in speaking with her, it wasn’t difficult to imagine how she’s been able to charm so many audiences.
Lights’ music exudes her personality: infectious, open and brimming with confidence. Her latest album, 2014’s Little Machines, features her emphatic vocals taking charge of a power-packed musical backdrop that at times seems to toe the line between EDM-informed pop and new wave. It’s her first collection of new material since 2011’s Siberia. In the time in between, she got married to Blessthefall’s Beau Bokan and the couple had their first child. However, she also struggled with a bout of writer’s block that saw her expanding her horizons as an artist in order to overcome.
“I think that I had to just not think about music for a little while and focus on other aspects of my creativity,” Lights explained. “Creativity as a whole is a muscle, and if it doesn’t get practice, it gets weak, and you need to broaden your perspective of what your art is.”
She expressed herself through painting and poetry, she said, and also took walks in order to stoke the flames of her creativity. Luckily for her fans, it worked, and the result was a sort of songwriting eruption.
“I ended up writing 43 songs for the album,” she said. “At the end of 2013, I was like, wow, there are a lot of songs here. Not even a month later, we were in the studio working on the album. It’s just a part of maturing, just trying different angles and seeing what’s going to fit. Now I’m more inspired than ever.”
Later in spring, Lights will head to Sacramento for a show at Ace of Spades on April 16, 2015, in between playing both weekends of Coachella, along with every other musical act you’re pretty much dying to see live. In the following interview, we discussed a couple of the songs on Little Machines as well as what it was like coming of age in the music industry. But first, we got down and nerdy.
Before we go on, I was reading a clip about you in Nylon, and they asked you to list your favorite things to do to wind down, and one of the things you mentioned was playing Final Fantasy games. I love the Final Fantasy series…
Oh, do you? What’s your favorite Final Fantasy? You’re going to say VII, aren’t you…
No, actually it’s VIII.
Oh!
I love the story, the characters, everything about it. What about yours?
I have to say the XIII series—XIII, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns. It’s because I love Lightning. She’s such a badass, and I got my haircut like hers…
That’s what I was leading up to. I thought your hair looked like the character’s.
Yeah! She’s a role model of mine, and she’s not even real!
You’re playing both weekends of Coachella. Have you ever been there before, even as a spectator?
No, this is my first time there. My first time there will be playing it. I’m really excited, and I’m looking forward to playing it for sure. The first day of Coachella—well, the first day we’re playing it—is my birthday.
Are there any bands you’re hoping to catch while you’re at Coachella?
On the day we’re playing, The War on Drugs is playing, and I really love that album, so I’m going to try to see them. I’m also going to try to see Drake… I don’t know if I’m going to bring a flower crown or not. Is everyone going to wear a flower crown? Is that the thing you have to do when you go to Coachella, or put things on your forehead? I don’t know. Maybe that’s how you prepare for Coachella–put a jewel on your forehead and a flower crown [laughs].
I read that you were first signed when you were 15. That must have been a surreal experience, basically growing up in the music business.
It’s kind of funny… I started writing when I was 11 and producing my own stuff when I was 15. By the time I met my first manager and got my first development deal when I was 16—I met my manager when I was 15—it was kind of like instantly de-glamorized for me. You think when you get signed, you’re suddenly famous. I had this fantasy when I was 13 that I would go snowboarding and everyone would recognize me at the slopes. In the first few months, though, it was de-glamorized for me. That’s not a sad story. It’s probably a realistic story. I was rejected a lot in the beginning; people didn’t get it. I went around to a million different CEOs of record labels, and people didn’t understand it. After a while, I got a development deal, and people tried to figure out what your sound is and who’s going to get behind you. Then the merger with Sony and BMG happened, and I got dropped from that, but I got signed to a publishing deal and started focusing on songwriting. It was a lot of traveling around between the small town I lived in and Toronto, and sitting in hotel rooms writing and trying to catch up on school work. It wasn’t a surreal experience, because it was a lot of hard work and more of a grind, really.
You said it de-glamorized the whole thing for you. Do you think that helps keep you grounded, because you saw that it’s not just about talent, but it’s about a lot of things?
For sure. It instantly became not about fame and not about money. It’s about doing what makes you happy, because you have all these different people around you that have a different idea of what they think you can be. I have a pretty good sense of myself, and I’m pretty confident, even when I was younger, and I was so disgusted by the idea of somebody else trying to create a persona for me, and I think that was important because, you know, nobody can tell me what I am. Because of that, I really had to search out where I belonged in music. Even now, doing what I love and creating music that makes me happy is the most important thing.
Your latest album, Little Machines, is really good. I really liked the song, “Running with the Boys.” I thought the lyrics had a real nostalgic quality to them. I was hoping you could talk about the writing of that one a little bit.
Thank you! Yeah, that’s one of my favorite ones from the record, because it describes that mindstate I was in when I rediscovered the inspiration for creating music. It went back to the beginning days when I first started producing my own stuff and the limitless qualities of creativity. You could be whoever you want, sound any way you want. I never want to lose that, but the more you get to know about the industry—or anything in life—once it gets de-glamorized…you know, the prospect was always more beautiful when we were younger… And that’s how we should keep it, how beautiful life could be, and that’s what that song is all about.
Based on what you were saying earlier, there’s a song on your album called “Muscle Memory.” Is it about what you were saying? That creativity is a muscle?
Ironically, “Muscle Memory” is actually about the experience I’m going through of being a musician married to a musician. We’re away from each other all the time. It’s the idea of someone’s ghost being there even when they’re not near, thinking they’re there but they’re not. I began writing that song when I was in the middle of being really frustrated about music, and when I first finished it, I didn’t like it. I showed it to the team and the label, and I was really embarrassed, but everyone loved it. I was like, “Really? You like this song?” I had to really trust everyone and go back and listen to it and hear it with new ears. That’s something with having a lack of inspiration—everything sounds like crap. It’s not lack of talent, but lack of vision of seeing what’s actually good. That’s an example of something I went back to later, because everyone was like, “No, you’re crazy. This is a good song.” And now it’s one of the favorites on the album. When we play it live, it’s so dynamic and energetic. Right now it’s our show opener. It’s funny how things can come full-circle after a lack of inspiration.
It sounds like you have a bunch of songs that didn’t make the album that you can work on too, if you wanted.
I’ve always had excess songs for every album. I’ve probably written 10,000 songs in my life, but that’s the thing with music, and I think that’s good advice for anyone starting out… You can’t hold anything too dear, because not every single song that you write is going to be good. You can’t write 10 songs and say, “That’s going to be my album.” You have to get past the blasé stuff to get to the really rich stuff, and that’s just part of it. It’s kind of sad, because I’ve started so many songs that have just disappeared, because I didn’t have anywhere for them to go, and I’ve forgotten. And that’s OK. You can’t really go back to a song that’s five years old and have it represent where you’re at in life now.
See Lights live in Sacramento when she plays Ace of Spades on April 16, 2015. Saint Motel will also perform. Tickets to this all-ages show are $15. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to Aceofspadessac.com.
I hate being sick. As I type this, I’m totally dying. I just have a cold or something, but I know this is the end. I’ve been chugging NyQuil before bedtime like I used to chug whiskey when I was young and fun. (Honestly, though, I have to say NyQuil is way better. Have you ever tried to fight the urge to sleep and stay awake after you take NyQuil? It’s crazy! I was so high the other night, babbling all kinds of crazy shit, and that was just after taking the prescribed dosage. Maybe I’m just a lightweight, but I can’t believe they sell this stuff over the counter.) Every time I get sick, I figure it’s just the beginning of the downward spiral that ends with me in the grave. I’m not sure I’d go as far as to call it a “psychosis,” but it’s probably pretty close.
My problem with getting sick is multifaceted. First, it’s just another instance of my body betraying me. Like the time I came back from the barbershop when I was 24 and realized I was going bald, or after puberty when my growth spurt petered out at a generic 5-foot-9. And how I wasn’t genetically blessed with washboard abs, and even at my most fit and healthy was saddled with a ring of perma-blubber around my midsection. There’s also my ears’ propensity to produce copious amounts of earwax, but I figure if I keep going, you’ll probably get pretty grossed out.
That’s the thing, too; being sick makes you realize that bodies are gross. All your cranial orifices become juicy and moist and other disgusting adjectives. I hate that gurgle-y sound my entire head seems to make every time I breathe, and my breath itself just feels humid. I really hate it when that little drop of mucus starts to flow out of my nostril and I’m busy driving or whatever so I can’t take care of it right away so it pools in that stupid indentation above my upper lip and I’m never able to grab a tissue in time before it dribbles in my mouth. I hate that when I speak, I sound like Chuckie Finster from Rugrats, even though I’m pushing 40.
I also find myself acting even more like a child than I usually do, and that’s just not becoming of a man my age. I’m totally helpless and just want a blanky and/or my mommy. Or orange juice. Or chocolate chip cookies. Actually, if you could get me some chocowat chips, I would weally appweciate it. Pwease?
But as paranoid as I get about my health, I’m stubbornly opposed to doing anything about it. I hate going to doctors. I think I’m mostly afraid that my worst fears would be confirmed; or worse, that I’d be reminded that I’m just a wimpy hypochondriac. Really though, unless you’re really, really sick, there’s nothing going to the doctor can do for you. They’re just going to tell me to drink plenty of fluids and take Motrin, or, if I’m lucky, prescribe me something fun like cough syrup laced with codeine. I know they’re not going to cure me, because as we all know, there is no cure for the common cold.
I’m not sure the last time anyone came up with a cure for anything. Even stuff I thought was taken care of always seems to rear its ugly head, like bubonic plague, or THE plague as it’s often referred to because it’s so fucking scary.
Since August, the plague has been ravaging Madagascar. This past week, the World Health Organization reported that 57 of the 213 known people infected with bubonic plague had died, with a wider outbreak feared after the island nation suffered a recent spate of flooding. The plague has been kicking humanity’s ass since the Dark Ages, you know? If we haven’t been able to lick it by now, how can we expect we ever will?
How about something closer to home? The fears that we’re all going to get Ebola may have been laid to rest, but what about something deceptively worse and even more contagious? Welcome the measles to the list of things you thought you didn’t have to worry about anymore. Disneyland was ground zero for a recent outbreak that has seen 79 cases of measles and rising in California (52 of those cases can be linked to Disneyland, according to a Jan. 29 article on CNN.com). An additional 16 cases in other states, such as Arizona, can be linked to the Disneyland outbreak. Outside the United States, measles is a huge problem: more than half of the 250,000 people who contracted the highly contagious disease died last year (but you know, who needs a vaccine?).
Another thing I tend to do when I’m sick is self-diagnose and/or look up frightening articles about deadly diseases online. Mostly the latter. That could contribute to why I always think that every sniffle or sneeze will be my last; but then again, if I didn’t scour the Internet for all these nasty things, I probably wouldn’t have anything to write about.
Men are dogs. Am I right, ladies? They might have it all—the perfect job, money, a beautiful wife—but they always end up begging strangers for treats, if you know what I’m saying. That familiar scenario plays itself out with ho-hum results in the new thriller, The Loft, starring Karl Urban of Star Trek reboot fame.
Urban stars as Vincent Stevens, an it-boy in the world of architecture. He’s responsible for those buildings with the awesome apartments that you wish you could afford. At the opening of his newest project, Stevens takes his four bestest bros on a tour and brings them to a lavish loft. He presents each of them with a key and tells them the loft will be their personal playground—an oasis where they can do whatever they want, with whomever they want, without having to worry about suspicious hotel charges showing up on credit card statements, basically every married douchebag’s fantasy. Stevens’ friends are a cornucopia of archetypes: the hot head (Philip, played by Matthias Schoenaerts); the loud-mouth drunk (Marty, played by Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet); the kind of secretive mumble-y dude (Luke, played by Wentworth Miller); and the sensitive guy who’s not quite sure this is a good idea (Chris, Philip’s half-brother, played by James Marsden, aka Cyclops in the X-Men franchise). For his part, Urban is the cool, calculating Stevens, around whom this whole group of dudes.
At first, Chris is the only one to reject Vincent’s loft key, saying it’ll just blow up in everyone’s faces. But then he meets Anne Morris (played by the unnervingly gorgeous Rachael Taylor) at Philip’s wedding, and all that “But I’m a loyal husband to my unloving wife” bullshit dissipates real quick. Things are great for our guys, until the day when Luke enters the loft, finds a woman handcuffed to a bed, face down in a pool of blood, apparently murdered in some Fifty Shades-style night of debauchery. The thing is, only five keys exist, and no one knows about the loft—or its security code—other than the guys, so one of them must be responsible. The Loft then spends the rest of its time trying to unravel the mystery of whodunit.
There’s a lot to like about The Loft when the movie gets started. First, it’s got a decent cast of actors who may not be A-listers, but are all really competent. And other than Urban, whose schmaltzy delivery of just about every word of his innuendo-laden dialog makes you want to kick him in the balls, all of them do a nice job here—especially Stonestreet, who provides some much-needed levity. Other than Taylor, who lights up the screen in a pedestrian role, there’s not much of a female presence in the film, except Rhona Mitra, who stands out as Chris’ deliciously cranky wife Allison.
The film is also fun to look at. Erik Van Looy, who also directed the Belgian version of The Loft, gives the film a slick look and builds tension with frenetic close-ups of people’s faces, whiskey tumblers, apartment access speaker-phone speakers…just about everything. You’ll be able to count each one of Marsden’s eyelashes in a couple of scenes, which is great if that’s your thing.
Unfortunately, all the tense build-up peters out in a lackluster conclusion. While I wouldn’t call the ending predictable (though in all honesty, I’m never one to accurately predict the ending of any thriller), it just seems sudden and heavy-handed, as if the writers said, well, we have to wrap it up somehow, so…
This played out elsewhere in the script, too, in plot points that were introduced but never really fleshed out. There was Philip’s troubled youth, wherein he and Chris’ half-sister, Zoe (Dora Madison Burge from Friday Night Lights) bounced around in foster homes and were abused by their father. There was also the oft-mentioned matter of “the rules” of the loft. The guys talked about the rules a lot, like, who was abiding by them or who was breaking them, but no one really mentioned what they were. We were kind of left to piece them together: Text if you were going to use the loft? Don’t tell anyone about the loft? Remember when it’s your turn to replenish the loft’s supply of condoms? The fact that the rules were only loosely defined wouldn’t have been such a big problem for me if they didn’t bring them up so goddamn much.
The most important rule you should take from The Loft is that if your best bro offers you a key to some swinging downtown pad, don’t take it, because eventually you’ll probably have to cover up a murder or something. Stop barking up the wrong tree.
Perhaps you’re like me and you love getting out to the cinema during a long holiday weekend. Perhaps you also love being lazy, as I also do. Maybe you’ve just done your first wave of shopping and are fed up with all the crowds and traffic and just want to sit home and relax. How about the best of both worlds? Why not stay in and check out IFC Films’ latest indie feature Before I Disappear, released simultaneously in limited theaters and for rent on iTunes and video-on-demand services?
You might not have heard of Shawn Christensen’s directorial debut, but it has a lot going for it. For one, it’s based on his Oscar-winning short film “Curfew.” This year, Before I Disappear turned heads at SXSW, taking home the film festival’s Audience Award. So, it’s got a few accolades, but is it going to hold your attention long enough to keep you from minimizing your iTunes window and checking out pictures of leftovers on Facebook? I’d like to think it is.
Christensen also wrote the screenplay and starred in Before I Disappear, a sort of dream-like journey through the streets of New York City. He plays the role of Richie, a man so down on his luck that when we first meet him, he is lying in a bathtub full of water, stained red with his own blood. A lifelong loser, Richie has decided to take his own life, but his suicide is interrupted when his telephone rings.
Richie’s sister Maggie (Emmy Rossum) is on the other end of the line. They are polar opposites: Richie has battled addiction and works sketchy jobs, while Maggie has a successful career, a lavish New York City apartment and a daughter to look after. The two siblings haven’t spoken in years, but Maggie is in dire need of help. Though it’s not initially clear what’s wrong, it’s obvious Maggie is in some kind of serious trouble and she’s calling upon Richie to pick up her daughter, Sophia (Fatima Ptacek, reprising her role from “Curfew”).
To call Sophia “haughty” would be putting it mildly. When we’re first introduced to her, she’s in a school auditorium reading an Emily Dickinson poem aloud, which she recites in English and then again in Mandarin. She has little patience for Richie’s lethargic demeanor, his nasty habits (he’s a chain smoker) or his disheveled appearance. Of course, through various trials and tribulations, the two eventually form a bond that Richie hopes is strong enough to restore his will to live.
Before I Disappear often falls guilty to the vicious pulling of heartstrings. Christensen mopes around like a beaten dog for much of the film; however, there is something about him that is likable. He evokes a more relatable and amicable version of Vincent Gallo’s Billy Brown from Buffalo ’66, which shares Before I Disappear’s surrealistic quality. Richie is a grimy ne’er-do-well, much like Brown, but he doesn’t project his anger on others. Instead, he takes it out on himself. Sure, Richie can be a bit “woe-is-me” at times, but he genuinely seems to want to be better. It’s that yearning that makes him someone to root for. Paired with Sophia, a cute and precocious young girl who acts like a much older woman, you’ve got the perfect formula for a bona fide tear-jerker.
There are certainly scenes that will test your crying reflex, such as when Sophia discovers the wounds on Richie’s wrist, or later in the film when Richie and Maggie finally discuss the rift that has formed between them. However, there are a few instances of wonderfully dark comedy that break up the somber mood: For instance, Sophia leads a host of extras in a dreamy musical/dance number in a bowling alley just before one of the film’s major turning points. Later on, in another dream sequence, the Grim Reaper sits next to Richie. “Are you here for me?” he asks, to which the Grim Reaper responds by checking Richie’s pulse and shaking his head.
Christensen does well with surrounding himself with Rossum and Ptacek, who both create dynamic characters, whereas he tends to be one-note. Where Christensen succeeds, however, is creating a brooding atmosphere that harkens back to the gritty New York of yesteryear and crafting a tight, poignant script. Before I Disappear is a nice hidden gem in this year’s holiday movie season, and the best part is, you won’t even have to put on pants.
The Ting Tings reinvent themselves with their latest album, Super Critical
Who doesn’t love a good comeback story? The Ting Tings never really went away, but the alt-pop duo (comprised of Jules De Martino and Katie White) learned the hard way how mercurial the life of a “buzz band” could be after the release of their second album, Sounds from Nowheresville.
In 2008, The Ting Tings took over the airwaves with their smash hit, “That’s Not My Name.” It’s so catchy that the mere mention of it probably got it stuck in your head. It’s OK, you’re not the only one. Unfortunately, the sophomore jinx cursed their follow-up release, and it seemed as if The Ting Tings may drop off the map entirely. Luckily, this was not the case: White and De Martino headed to the party-hearty island of Ibiza, hooked up with Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor, ditched digital for analog and reinvented their sound—with seriously groovy results.
“It was so enjoyable, and the second album was so unenjoyable—a lot of it—and so confusing,” White says about the differences between recording Sounds to Nowheresville and the band’s third album, Super Critical.
“Sounds from Nowheresville is basically us bitching about the record industry,” she adds with a laugh. “It was nice to get it off our chests, but no one really gives a shit. They just want to hear a good song. [Super Critical] is a lot happier, I think.”
Super Critical is pretty much guaranteed to give you happy feet. Though it was born in Ibiza, it’s a dance album that rebels against the electronic dance music you’re sure to hear blaring out of the Spanish island’s many clubs. It’s an intentional nod to the halcyon days of Studio 54, full of juicy rhythms, funky riffs and intense levels of sass permeating from White’s vocals.
“Ibiza is known world-round for having some of the best clubs in the world,” White explains. “Dance music really found its feet there, but when we got there, I don’t know, we got really bored with all the techno. When we got into the studio with Andy, we’d talk about Studio 54 and get obsessed with that. I totally understand how you take your girl out to a club and dance [to techno] for hours, it makes complete sense, but from a songwriting point of view, it makes less sense.”
To get an authentic feel, the band went old school with their recording process, leaning on analog tools as opposed to ProTools.
“It’s two completely different ways of working, and they’ve both got their pluses and minuses,” she says. “But for us, doing something new is always so exciting. Both of our first albums were made in our bedrooms, basically.”
White acknowledges that digital recording gave the band a lot more flexibility when it came to cobbling their songs together, but having unlimited freedom to tinker with their songs wasn’t always a good thing.
“You can keep cutting and pasting things, but it can also be that you have too much choice,” White explains.
The Ting Tings had also moved on from their major label, Columbia, which meant the band could create without having to consider outside opinions.
“For our second album, we weren’t really lost, but we’d been on tour for four years. Our lives had changed,” White says. “We had a label that had their own opinions of what we should sound like. When you have ProTools, you can keep doing it and doing it.
“You can drive yourself crazy with it.”
On the bright side, that experience is long behind The Ting Tings and they’re in a much better place—both emotionally and sonically. Submerge caught up with White five days after she returned home to the United Kingdom from Japan. She was still a bit jet-lagged.
How did it go in Japan? Were you playing shows out there?
Yeah, we were playing our own shows in Tokyo and Osaka. Japan, especially Tokyo, is the most amazing place to go in the world. It’s just mind-blowing—clothes, fashion, weird, wondrous things. It kind of feels like Europe or New York, but it’s got a weird twist on it that you’d only see in Japan. Like, we went to this place called the robot restaurant, where these robots would dance. It was just incredible—really bad, but good.
I heard they had cat cafés out there where you could go and drink tea and hang out with cats.
Yeah, we went there as well! We went to a bar where they lock you up in handcuffs, and they put you in a prison cell and serve you drinks in test tubes. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but you’ll never forget it.
You recorded each of your three albums in different locations. Is Tokyo on the list for your fourth album?
At the moment we’re thinking about going to Nashville. I don’t know why. We’re not huge fans of country, but it’s very fascinating. We’re really influenced by Fleetwood Mac, so maybe we could take some of that influence and take it to Nashville.
It’s cool that you mention that, because I was listening to the commentary for your latest album, Super Critical, on Spotify. You guys mentioned the song “Only Love” had some Fleetwood Mac influence. Jules was mentioning that it was like a country song, and it does stick out a bit on the album, in a good way. Other than Fleetwood Mac, was there any other country influences on that song?
I don’t know. It was one of the first songs we were working on with Andy. It’s definitely quite different from the rest of the album. It was mainly Fleetwood Mac, to be honest. I just got obsessed with Stevie Nicks. I got obsessed with her lyrics, how she was quite dramatic… I love that mood that she sets, because you don’t have a lot of people who write songs like that now. Kate Bush sort of writes in a similar way. It’s lovely. They’re all stories about somebody else.
You mentioned Andy from Duran Duran. It must have been great to have this sort of serendipitous meeting with him and then get to work together in the studio. What did you take away from recording with him that maybe you weren’t doing before?
Yeah, we stopped deleting things. We’re really bad—quite impatient. We’ll work on a song, like “That’s Not My Name” was probably 20 songs before it was “That’s Not My Name.” Andy stopped us at the perfect time, like, “Step away from the computer, step away from the delete button and go home.” He would literally shove us out of the studio and tell us, “Come back and listen to it in the morning and see what you think.” When we would come back, we would love it, and we were glad we didn’t delete it.
Did it make you think back to things you left on the cutting room floor that you wish you’d held on to?
Fuck yeah! It was frustrating. We have quite a lot of ideas, and Andy was quite shocked at how many ideas we had, but you have to regulate them and follow them through.
The last song on Super Critical was one of my favorites, “Failure.” Did that song sum up your feelings about how Sounds from Nowheresville turned out?
I think it’s a little bit more tongue in cheek. We wrote the melody to it, and we were like, it’s so pop. What could we do with that? It’s so sweet—super sweet—so to just subvert it and write it about being a failure was just funny for it. It was a nod to a mentality we might have gone through, but we were in a much happier place by the time we wrote it. It wasn’t too sad. We weren’t crying when we wrote it [laughs].
Was it a conscious decision to keep Super Critical at nine songs?
We just naturally felt by the ninth song, that was our album. If we were with a major label, they might have tried to squeeze a few more songs into it. I love artists, but if they start 15 or 20 new songs, I can’t cope with it. It just gets too be too much for me. Nine just seems natural.
Check out The Ting Tings live in Sacramento at Harlow’s on Jan. 24, 2015. Tickets start at $17, and doors open at 8 p.m. To order tickets online, go to Thetingtings.com or Harlows.com.
