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After spending numerous years in various incarnations of
the same band, high school friends Jason Reynolds and Rob Lindgren have teamed
up to form Revolution, I Love You. I recently had a chance to talk to them
about their debut EP and upcoming full-length release, their live show, their
history and more.
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MK - I know the two of you
have played together for awhile in other bands, but could you give me a little
bit of history about how Revolution, I Love You came to be?
R,ILY - We met in high school, and played together in the same band all the way up until we both left college. When that fell apart, we took the opportunity to try this new idea we had been kicking around, which turned into R,ILY. MK - I read that "Open Letter to the President of the United States of America" was written for one of your earlier bands. Did it have the Revolution, I Love You sound then or did it evolve to what is on Noise. Pop. Deathray? R,ILY - I actually wrote “Open Letter” entirely in Reason (the computer program we use for drum machines and synths) because I was away at college and didn’t have much else to work with. But our old band didn’t use ANY electronics, so we just played it like a MK - I love the electro country hip hop sound of "...And She Said it With a Straight Face", which to me really sets itself apart from the rest of the CD. Where did that song come from? R,ILY - Hahaha, it came from a country song, of course. That song all started with this Johnny Cash acoustic guitar bit that Jason had written, and one day I decided to goof around with it on piano and add the reggaeton ‘riddm’ under it. Once that was laid down, everything clicked and the rest of the song spilled out from there over the course of one or two days. And more importantly, it’s really indicative of a direction we are planning to move in; Dangermouse-style spliced up hip-hop beats, folk instrumentation and arrangements, and our penchant for horrible noises. That’s going to be another year or two away, though. MK - You cover The
Cure's "Lullaby". What made you decide to do that and do you have any other
covers up your sleeves?
R,ILY - It just kinda happened one day, playing around on guitar, having fun with a really dark and serious song. It was another one of those moments where we made one little playful change, namely increasing the tempo, and then everything clicked. BAM, next thing you know we had this whole cover recorded and we LOVED it, so we figure, “hey, let’s release it.” And yes, we do have other covers up our sleeve. We’ve been playing “Frankly, Mr. Shankly” by The Smiths since the very beginning, and we worked out a mash-up of “Just What I Needed” by The Cars and “Robocop” by Kanye West, which we think is hilarious. Covers are a great way to experiment, especially when you pull the songs out of their original context. We stopped playing the Cars/Kanye mash-up because one of the guitar parts, this weird harmonized octave pedal thing in the bridge, ended up inspiring the last half of “Can’t Do This On My Own”, the first track on our upcoming CD. More importantly, though, We Choose to Go to the Moon will feature a really nasty, 7-minute arrangement of “There is a Light That Will Never Go Out” by The Smiths. MK - Since you only have
six cuts on your EP what else do you play in your live
show?
R,ILY - Mostly stuff that’s
going to be on our next release this summer, We Choose to Go to the
Moon. We released Noise. Pop. Deathray. in late 2008,
then spent the next couple months banging out some new songs so we could at
least play a 35 minute set. We had enough material to release a new EP just a
few months after we started gigging! By the time we got halfway through the
recording process, we added another whole slew of songs, and I think this new CD
is going to be a full-length album. We also messed around with some of the
songs from Noise. Pop. Deathray. adding extended intros and so
forth as well as composing a few short
interludes.
MK - On your EP you have
a very unique sound that definitely sounds like more than two people. How does
that translate live?
R,ILY - The common thing we hear from the audience when we finish playing is, “You guys make a whole lot of noise for just two people!” Part of that is because I layer guitar parts using a Boss Loopstation, part is because we both use our pedals to make a lot of horrible, loud, guitar noises, and part is just because we both bounce back and forth between guitar and keyboard and vocals the entire time. We are VERY busy on stage, and no matter what, there is always a lot going on sonically. MK - Are you open to ever adding other band members? R,ILY - I think the most important thing we ever did was give ourselves the very severe restriction of not allowing ourselves a live drummer. A lot of bands over the years have incorporated drum machines: Radiohead, Bloc Party, NIN, Yeasayer, etc. There is absolutely nothing original about us, or anyone else, using drum machines. What DOES set us apart is that the drum machine is absolutely integral to what we do; not one song of ours strays from that. It forces us to think about our songwriting differently, because there are a lot of times when it would be easy to say, “man, this would be a great time for a real drum kit”. It SO easy to say that when you grow up playing in rock bands, with rock drummers, and we don’t want to allow ourselves that crutch to fall back on. So no, I guess we're not to open to adding other members. We're pretty happy with the way things are. MK - You
recently played the Millenium Music Conference in Harrisburg. How was
that?
R,ILY - It was wonderful. We met some great people, from local singer-songwriters to Lou from ReverbNation (the single most useful website ever for indie musicians, if you’re not on it, GET on it). We got to hang out with the girl from House of One Accord, which is awesome because we love love love DIY venues. And she’s a total sweetheart, to boot. Most importantly, we walked away from the conference ready to GO. Everyone that we talked to said that we are on the right path, that we have the right idea about how to do this music thing. We needed to hear that, we needed to have it beaten into us so we can finally stop worrying about HOW we should go about this, and recognize that we are ALREADY DOING IT. And we just need to KEEP doing it. MK - You have a new album in the works. What can we expect from that? R,ILY - It opens with looping guitar feedback and 808s. It ends with a 7 minute cover of “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths. There are direct musical references to both “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen and “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes. It's called "We Choose to Go to the Moon", and the tone is generally more ecstatic and anthemic. It has more brit-pop melodies, Interpol guitar lines, and 60s-retro-via-Elvis-Costello pop songs. We’re really excited about it! MK - Is there anything else you'd like to share with readers? R,ILY - Nope. Interview By Geoff
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MK - Can you give me a brief band history?
NE - "Four of the six of us went to high school together, and always played in bands. In 2007, Caleb and Evan worked on an album together for the band Caleb was in at the time. Not too long after completing this project, Caleb decided that he wanted to put a group together based around his solo electronic side-project that he had been doing since 2003. He contacted Evan to help him, and The Nova Echo was born. After a year or so of lineup changes, the band was solidified with Caleb and Evan handling front-man and guitar/synth duties respectively, and Will Arledge (guitar), Matt Hixon (bass), Lee Brooks (keys), and Jeremy London (drums) completing the lineup."
MK - I haven't heard your debut CD. Can you tell me how your new EP Voyager compares to it?
Evan - "Overall, the EP is a little edgier and heavy hitting - "Harps" is definitely one of the more aggressive songs that we've recorded. The production on the EP is also stepped up a bit from the first album because there was no set release date, which allowed more time to focus on details."
MK - In the time between your debut and Voyager the band has added a new member and several of you have changed instruments. How has that affected the sound and dynamic of the band?
Evan - "The sound on the recordings was probably most affected by adding Jeremy as a drummer because he has a different style than Lee, who played on the full-length. The overall dynamic just seems more natural with the current lineup - Evan (previously on keys) is more comfortable as a guitar player, and Caleb is able to be a more engaging front-man now that he's not playing an instrument live."
MK - You recorded several solo albums before forming The Nova Echo and now you do all the writing for the band. Why did you decide to go with a band instead of just saying solo?
Caleb - "There's a few reasons, I love performing and I like for my performances to be extremely moving and powerful, theres no substitute for the raw energy a live band generates. I've also had the band aspect in my life since I was quite young so It's hard to image life without one at this point. I had always wanted to make a band out of the more electronic music I was doing so It was great to finally see that dream come to fruition."
MK - There seem to be a lot of space references in the song titles, band name .... Can you elaborate on this?
Caleb - "Outer space is mysterious, unfathomably vast and all together breath taking, it fascinates me. It's mind blowing to think how small the earth is even compared to our own Sun, if you look at a diagram it helps put it into perspective how huge the galaxy really is. I think about it daily and it's a constant reminder of how incredible and precious life is here on our planet. Creatively, having space as a muse usually leaves a prominent emotional feeling with the songs which I love, It's wonderful when a listener can really feel a connection to the music and I very much hope my listeners do."
MK - Why did you decide to give the EP away as a free download?
Evan - "There are a few reasons for this, and we could probably go on about them for entirely too long. Without getting long-winded, we felt as though with the changing climate of the music industry, it's becoming more and more difficult to rely on music sales for income. And at this point in our career, it's more important for us to get our material to as many people as possible in order to build our fan base. Giving the EP away for free was a great way to do that. We've found multiple websites where our EP download has been posted, and we have no idea how it ended up on most of them. That's a good thing."
MK - I read that you performed some acoustic shows. Being an electronically driven band, how does your sound translate in an acoustic setting?
Evan - "It's definitely an interesting way for us to perform, naturally much more laid back than the normal set. It's really cool, though, because the songs are still completely recognizable as being The Nova Echo, but the sound and texture is much different. Matt plays an upright bass with a bow, and all the key and synth parts are done with a piano. It's nice to be able to translate the music to make it suitable for small venues or situations where the atmosphere is more low-key."
MK - You recently played Eyecon for the second straight year. How did you get involved with that?
Evan - "We happened to know the right people. Lee, our keyboard player, grew up with Kenny, the convention organizer. He asked us to come down to Orlando and play a Twilight convention in May of last year, and it was a huge success, one of the best shows we've ever played. From that one show, we gained a solid following in the Orlando area, and have been playing all the conventions he puts on ever since."
MK - When you played there last year you played with actor Gil Birmingham. What can you tell me about that?
Caleb - "For me it was kind of surreal, I was a huge Stevie Ray Vaughan fan as a kid and all that kept going through my mind was "Wow, I wish little me could see me now, playing Crossfire on stage with my friends and this nice werewolf man."
Matt - "Playing with Gil was a ton of fun. I was nervous going in because I had only seen videos of him playing and acoustic and singing, but he can absolutely destroy an electric when it come to blues. I was way impressed."
MK - Did you perform with anyone there this year?
Matt - "Earlier this year at the first TrueBlood convention we did, Lee and Myself (Matt) performed with Todd Lowe who plays Terry on the show. I had a blast hanging with him in general and playing with him was just as fun. His style of music is somewhat Alt Country and he does it very well. It was way fun too because we played "Heart of Glass," I feel like everyone has to love that tune."
MK - What can we expect from The Nova Echo in 2011?
Evan - "We've got some big things in the works, but we can't mention any specifics just yet. Let's just say we hope to be seeing all of you in your city sometime within the next year."
MK - Is there anything else you'd like to share with readers?
NE - We hope you like the tunes and please feel free to let us know what you think. There are many ways to get in touch with us and if you write us, we will write you back!
Interview By Geoff Melton
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