| The changing times and truths of SAOSIN. |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Monday, 09 August 2010 01:11 |
 Southern Californian band SAOSIN have never had the most stable band-life. From an early change in vocalists, label-changes, an array of producers, and now most recently their second vocalist Cove Reber announcing his departure... it has been a bumpy ride to say the least. However throughout all the changes, one thing has stayed the same - the band has stayed true to their feelings and has not been afraid to risk it all for true personal satisfaction. We were lucky enough to sit down with guitarist BEAU BURCHELL and bassist CHRIS SORENSON when the band visited New Zealand alongside Blessthefall in June - their second performance in NZ since their 2006 debut at Taste Of Chaos. It’s safe to say that the band were stoked to be back here - "We like doing really touristy stuff. We went up the [Sky Tower] again and tried to get [Blessthefall] to jump off!" - and the enthusiasm witnessed at their show [read our review HERE] never wavered, showcasing a band which really does put their all into performances and the happiness of their fans. COUP DE MAIN: Your latest album is called 'In Search Of Solid Ground' - what does the title of the album mean to you as a band? SAOSIN: BEAU BURCHELL: When we started making the record we were at a place where we didn’t necessarily know what we wanted to do. So that’s kind of what the name encapsulates. We didn’t want to be stuck to a certain sound or anything, or if we did, we just wanted to see if the sound that we created was the sound we wanted to keep going with. It’s very easy to get lumped in the 'here today gone tomorrow'-type of band, where everyone talks about you and then the next day nobody cares. CDM: With the recording process for that specific album, I know you went through a lot of label merges, and losing teams, and producers pulling out... how does that impact the feeling towards the album? SAOSIN: CHRIS SORENSON: If anything, it kind of brought us together, you know. We started out wanting to do most of the record ourselves. Throughout the process a lot of things happened and in the end, it kind of just really brought us closer. Whenever you experience things together as a group you share a bond... and yeah, in the end we ended up doing the majority of it ourselves. CDM: Yeah, you [Beau] mixed it and produced a few songs - is that something you wanted to do? CHRIS: It wasn’t our intention. When we started the record we didn’t want to produce songs, it was just our intention to be more involved with the songs as far as the recording process was going. It just so happened that we self-produced a couple of songs, and when we went to find a mixer, Beau was the best of all the mixers we had that submitted their versions of the songs. In the end we just proved to ourselves that we’re just as capable as hiring somebody else. CDM: I guess there’s no point in going elsewhere if you can do it better yourself... BEAU: Don’t get me wrong, it’s always nice to have someone else do it - show up, drink coffee and play, and then leave. It’s more work on our part, but we put a lot of work in and in the end we really appreciate it. CDM: Did you find that the level of personal satisfaction for this album was greater because of that? CHRIS: For sure. But I wouldn’t say the labels were as stoked. Anything that a band delivers... like if we self-produce and self-mix a song and put another person's name on it, the label would think it’s a better song than if we submitted it. BEAU: Labels are stuck in that old thinking to where [they] like what they’re used to doing: "Okay if we spend a lot of money on something..." It’s like a movie. Like: "Oh if we have Keanu Reeves and Angelina Jolie it’s gonna be a hit, guaranteed." But if the script and storyline isn’t there, it’ll still suck... like Indiana Jones. But they’re so used to thinking [that] we need this and this, otherwise it won't happen. So when you hand them a great movie with unknown actors, they’re like: "I don’t know, I don’t know..." So it’s like, you can have the same song, but unless you have that big name on it... For instance, there was a couple of times where you hand in two versions both the exact same, but this producer worked on one, and we worked on one... and the label would instantly like the producer's one better. And they’d even make up things in their mind like: "Oh I really like the way the vocal does this in this version"... but its like, it’s the same in the other one. CDM: Do you think a big myth that needs to be busted is that record companies are like glorified banks? CHRIS: Yes and no. There are some people at labels who are very important to a band's career. But in this day and age they’re finding themselves more and more useless. But that’s their own fault because they haven’t figured out ways for them to be useful. It’s great to have the money behind you: to shoot videos, to record in Malibu... but at the end of the day, that’s going to be a thing of the past pretty soon. CDM: With the whole label situation right now - I know you are no longer signed and you’re back to D.I.Y. - what happened with that, was it a natural progression to leave? BEAU: When we originally signed to Capitol, they had the obligation to put out two records. Then we got moved to Virgin, and it was almost like we got adopted - not because they wanted us as a kid, but because we were their step-brother’s kid and they died, so it was like they inherited us. When we started at Capitol they were like: "Oh we want to go the Metallica route and you put out cool records on your own and eventually you get big." Whereas with Virgin it was kind of like: "Okay well we have one record on Capitol now, so let's go for it..." But we had a different plan in mind. So at the end of the day we finished up with 'In Search Of Solid Ground' and they weren’t obligated to put out any more records and we were happy to leave. We ended on good terms. We still talk to our original A&R guy; there were a lot of good people who we really appreciated. CHRIS: Some things just don’t work out. CDM: Are you currently looking at any other labels? BEAU: We’re concentrating on writing right now, just trying to move on. I feel like our label is the second step we’ll have to take. Right now we just want to get the material there and write a record, then we’ll find a home for it. CDM: So no three-year wait for fans again? BEAU: <laughs> No we’re already writing right now. It may take three years though, we are in no rush.  CDM: When you were recording, you teamed up with Hurley to live broadcast the recording process. Was that your idea? CHRIS: It was our idea, we went to them. They just built a studio, and when we went there it was a big open warehouse, not like a studio in the traditional sense which has a lot of rooms and each room is very specific... the Hurley place is in the middle of the warehouse, so we built up a big drum studio set-up, a rehearsal set-up... I painted a huge wall, built a vibe around it, put cameras up and we just did what we do. CDM: Did you find that fans responded well to that? CHRIS: We didn’t have too much communication with the fans which was kind of the point. We wanted it to be like, if you were there and you were watching something happen you were there for it, and there was no way to go back to watch it. It worked out well, kids got insight to a lot of stuff. I think a lot of people learned that when you’re recording there’s a lot of wasting time, which sometimes is necessary. You can spend eight hours doing something that doesn’t sound good, and then you change the way you’re sitting and then it clicks, and that’s what the sound is. CDM: I know you guys have a Twitter account... CHRIS: I update it. CDM: So what are your views on Twitter and social networking? CHRIS: It’s tough. Twitter used to be an easier way to get out, but now it’s like every single person has a Twitter so it’s hard to get heard. There’s something that’s going to change and some new thing will come out and people will latch onto that.  CDM: Do you think there is an expectation for bands to have an online presence and be accessible to fans? CHRIS: We’ve always been accessible. When we first started out, the first songs we put out were online, just five song samples. We put that out online and it spread virally for no reason. Kids just liked it and said 'check this out'. And then we're always in contact with fans via our message board, and we now have a bunch of friends who were fans. We really try to connect with fans. We were kind of late to Twitter. One thing about Twitter is that it makes things seem a little more important [than they actually are]. It's hard to get important things out. Now, I think kids care more about us eating fried rice. If we post that, compared to ‘hey we have a new record out’ - I don’t think people care as much about that anymore as much as they would about my fried rice. In that sense it’s a little tough, but its stupid to deny any new technology that’s making headways. CDM: True fans could see through all that though right? CHRIS: Of course, we have some really good fans. BEAU: For me personally, I like bands which I don’t know much about. Growing up, you’d hear about bands and it’d be like: "Oh man there’s this band and like, they all drink blood before they play!" But now it's like: "No they don’t. Look here on Wikipedia, this is what they do." Every argument is easily ended by 'oh yeah let's look it up' - whereas before, there used to be mystery. CHRIS: I remember this band Jeromes Dream - I remember hearing that their drummer got kidnapped and was being held for ransom. It wasn’t true, but I heard it and was stoked. Another band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, there was a rumour that they were responsible for this huge rolling black-out in the U.S. which shut out twenty million homes - and that was a true rumour. CDM: With this idea of mystery being lost, I’ve heard the phrase ‘Age of Entitlement’ being thrown about. Everything is always so accessible these days and people now grow up feeling like they’re entitled to everything for free. BEAU: It's true. A lot of it's true. People just need to realize that when you work for something it means more to you, or something to you. If you get it for free it never means anything to you at all, which I think a lot of people are realizing. When our fans were working for us, and spreading our music around, that’s when we had more of a core fan-base. Now it's all about instant gratification. If something doesn’t happen within thirty seconds then it's not worth your time. CDM: And comparing CD's and Vinyl to iTunes, scrolling through iTunes is nowhere near as fun as looking through a CD collection... BEAU: When you put on a CD it’s a commitment to listen to at least two songs. iTunes is like: click. Twenty seconds later you skip. Especially with a record it’s like: "Alright cool, I’m here". There’s no fast forwarding or skipping. If there’s a big pause in between a song, I’m in for it. You’re locked in. Tool had a secret track and it was like thirty minutes past the end of the record so you had to fast forward, and you had to just sit there holding your finger on the button, and it wasn’t fast, you still had to sit there for ten minutes. Now you can't have a secret track anymore. CDM: Historically, a D.I.Y. band would dream of being signed to a label, but you guys have now flipped the script and gone what some could call backwards. Do you think it’s more viable for bands to be D.I.Y. now? BEAU: It depends on what kind of band you want to be. There’s some cool things by Trent Reznor where he talks about his view on like: if you’re a band and you go to a major label, then your goal is to be a pop-star sensation and you’re going to have to sacrifice some creative and personal satisfaction, like ‘oh I’m happy with the music I’m making and everything has to mean something’. So there’s that, and the alternative is doing everything on your own, not caring about being famous and you’ll probably have to live with your parents, but you’ll be making music you feel is amazing, but you can't expect people to hear it. That is what he believes. To find the middle ground is key. I think some of that is true, if you want to be a band that’s big you’ll have to lean towards that way, but you’ll have to sacrifice in certain areas most of the time. CDM: How has the change impacted on tour-life for the band? I know earlier this year your European tour was cancelled... BEAU: As far as labels, it doesn’t really. Well I guess it does, but it [also] doesn’t. CHRIS: If you hire somebody to mow your lawn but your lawn isn’t getting mowed, and your grass is tall, it’d be stupid to go try play sports in that grass. So that’s the situation we were in. We signed to a label to put a record out and they didn’t, and we couldn’t do it ourselves because we were still under the label, so for us to go over and hope... CDM: So the album didn’t ever end up being released in Europe? BEAU: No. So it sucks, we didn’t get any support. You release a record, and then you go and tour to support the record. It’s not as frequently you go on tour to release a record, especially overseas. It's not cheap over there. The dollar in the U.K. is worth like fifty cents. If we were to go there it would cost us personally out of our own pockets $8000, and for us to go over and show up with a box of CD's and hope people show up, doesn’t make sense. When we go to do the new stuff, we’ll release a new record and make sure it's out and being promoted, and then we’ll go tour there. CDM: It’s really cool you guys are open to playing community halls in New Zealand! BEAU: Yeah, we’ll play anywhere. We just don’t want to have to pay to play, as long as things make sense. Fans tend to take things personally, but this is our livelihood, we are dedicated to this. It’s not like we are on some free road, we’ve still got bills to pay. People don’t understand that. No band ever intentionally sets out to hurt feelings. CDM: With the economy how it is, do you have less of a tour crew out with you? BEAU: Right now we are. CDM: Does that make it a lot more stressful for you guys? CHRIS: We’re always involved. We are not the band who sit at the hotel all day. Beau and I are always at the venue with the crew making sure things get plugged in, we’d rather do that than sit around. That’s how you become a dick. We’re both not really into sports and other things that other band-people are into, like half the guys went to see the Lakers game, but to me I would rather set up the gear.  CDM: On Twitter when you announced you had left your label, you wrote that the future is bright. What is in store for Saosin? CHRIS: The idea of being solely responsible for something is exciting to us. At the end of the day, if something goes wrong or right, we only have ourselves to blame. We were in the situation where we had to cancel a tour because our label didn’t put out the record, and when we were on our last tour in the States they made us do the tour because they needed us to support it, but then they dropped us halfway through and so we didn’t get any promotion, and we were on tour not making much money playing the sticks. CDM: So now, you can call the shots! BEAU: Yeah, normally there is a chain of command, but now we’re at the top. Normally you’d come together as a band and say: "Alright guys here are some ideas, let's vote on it. Do we want to do this, yes? Okay let's do it." But before, we’d have to say to the label we want to do this, and they’d say yes or no. Now, if we want to do it we can do it. We don’t have to ask our parents anymore, now we’re on our own. CHRIS: If we want to put out a metal song, we can do it. BEAU: With that though, it's like, there are bills and other things now to take care of. It’s kind of cool though, because like, when you first move out of your parent's house you’re paying your bills and it's like: "Yeah we are a grown-up now, this is cool!" CDM: Any success you guys have now is all on you. CHRIS: We put out our first EP ['Translating The Name'] ourselves and it did really well. We accomplished a lot doing that, and we want to go back to a spot where we can do that. If we ever get to the point where we want to hire people, then we will. We’ll do it a different way. It’s not smart to give everything away and get nothing back. We never want to be a victim, we hate blaming people. CDM: Especially with music and art being so personal. CHRIS: When we’re touring, even this record, we started touring in June and didn’t stop until April. That was like, two weeks at home. For us to put all of that into the music, we want to be able to reap the benefits. Maybe not financially, but more fulfilment. CDM: True or False... Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship once tried out to be the vocalist for Saosin? BEAU: It wasn’t a try-out more just like, I think it was before Anthony... Gabe was a mutual friend, so we just showed him the instrumentals and he liked it, so he sang on one song. CHRIS: We need to find that and put it out.  CDM: And what is your craziest story about Blessthefall? CHRIS: We don’t have any yet, this is our first time ever playing with them. BEAU: I’m actually the reason Beau Bokan is in that band. He used to sing in Take The Crown, and then I recorded the first Take The Crown EP that they put out - 'Let The Games Begin'. I produced that, so through that I started teaching Beau how to sing, and then when Blessthefall’s singer quit we were at Hurley and their manager was working at Hurley also, and he said that Blessthefall needed a singer. I said I knew Beau this great singer, so they brought him in and I recorded him tracking over some Blessthefall song and gave Stewart my opinion, and now he is in the band... and he sleeps on my couch. This is the second time he slept on our couch actually. We all lived in an apartment before, all five of us in a two-bedroom apartment, and Beau moved in and slept on the couch. One time when we were on tour, and more of his band moved in, like three people lived in our apartment and he spray-painted Take The Crown on our wall and shattered our toilet in half... we had to get a new toilet put in. CDM: What’s next for Saosin? BEAU: We’re done until we have something new. Most likely we'll put out a new EP, which we always do. CDM: Do you know what direction you’ll head in? CHRIS: We don’t know yet. We try not to predict anything as then we get lumped into expectations on how it’s supposed to sound. We’ve learned our lesson, like we’d say our next album should be heavier, and then there is no heavy songs and everyone asks why. CDM: Nothing dies online anymore. BEAU: It’s so funny, nothing dies. There will be interviews we did six years ago, and people will ask if we’re still doing stuff and its like: "When did I ever say that?!" Wikipedia is ruining arguments, you can't do it anymore. It used to be so fun, You’d always have the gullible friend where it's like: "Oh the moon is made of cheese." And they’re like: "Whoa really?!" Now it's like: "No, look! Wikipedia says it's this..." You can’t argue anymore. |
