Interview: ourfathers

Hot off the release of their debut album “funeral pyre”, the gentlemen of post-hardcore/alternative rock band ourfathers. took the time to answer some lingering questions I had for them. These are some immensely talented and wonderful guys, so be sure to check them out on Facebook and purchase the album on Bandcamp either digitally or one of the super awesome vinyl bundles they have!

In terms of the writing process, what was different in terms of writing for a full length as opposed to an EP?

The writing process for “funeral pyre” (LP) was made a lot easier due to the groundwork we implemented from movements (EP). We found what we were looking for sonically and wanted to really expand the world we built. So I guess you could say that they went hand in hand. We had done a ton of research for the concept of funeral pyre while doing movements – we even titled the songs on the EP according to the number where we thought they would fit on the full length conceptually (also trying to take into account the interludes) to get an understanding or what sound we wanted to pursue for the the full length as well as the emotional draw.

Coming into the full length we had an abundant amount of material (5-10 songs didn’t actually make the cut for Funeral Pyre). The toughest thing for the full length was getting the lyrical content up to standards. We took the approach of adopting a language that is familiar with themes of repression, loss, regret, love, and depression.

You seemed to gather lots of praise for “Movements”. If you could, would you change anything about the EP now given the chance?

The response to Movements was absolutely mind blowing. We wrote music for ourselves initially not expecting it to gain any traction really. We can’t thank everyone enough for being so supportive over the course of us doing this.

Movements was a great learning experience for us especially as a new band becoming reacquainted with the studio. A lot of mistakes were made, and a lot of lessons were learned; a lot of editing down instrumentals, parts, leads, and lyrical content and changing them into something more focused.

Given the chance – I feel some of us would have definitely liked to have it sound less “produced” and had it been more raw and emotional. We come from a punk and hardcore backgrounds and heavy production and editing was difficult for us to digest as we wanted the honesty of the performance, emotions, and the feeling to come across as if we are playing a show for a room of a few people listening as we pour our hearts out.

We don’t want to abandon what we’ve built but we definitely wanted to take a step back and try another approach in an analog setting when it came to the full length. In the end, we realized that a mixture of the two methods would probably suit us better in the long run as we ran into similar problems going the analog route.

As far as producers go, we worked with Dryw Owens and Jacob Winick. Dryw Owens (Little Russia Recordings for “movements”) is amazing, and we can’t speak highly of him enough. The same can be said for Jacob Winik (Tiny Telephone for “funeral pyre”). The space he created for us to allow for sonic exploration was amazing – but at the end of the day we thought there were some missed opportunities on our end to really get to what we wanted.

Although they put out insanely creative and beautiful work, We might self-produce/record our next endeavors to be able to take what we’ve learned and apply them to a less time sensitive fashion. We really feel like letting our thoughts and ideas breathe a bit really helps us understand what a song needs and doesn’t need. This would allow us to finding a balance between electronically aided/and analog production methods, and raw untethered emotion and feel.

What were some of your most listened to albums while writing/recording?

We all come from pretty eclectic backgrounds but these are some of the more notable albums that really come to mind as an influence for the sounds we were looking for (not in any particular order):

Sigur Ros – Aegis Byrjun

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Hands Like Antennas to Heaven

The Mars Volta – Deloused at the Comatorium

At the Drive-In – Relationship of Command

Gatherers – Quiet World

Pianos Become the Teeth – The Lack Long After

Defeater – Lost Ground

Copeland – Ixora

Colour Revolt – Self Titled

These Arms Are Snakes – Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When its Antelope Go Home

The Elijah – I Loved I Hated I Destroyed I Created

Deafheaven – Sunbather

Lost in the Trees – A Church That Fits Our Needs

What are some of the lyrical themes or meanings behind some of the songs?

The majority of the themes follow a bit of a story arc. The stories separate and then weave together at different parts of the album. The overall theme really comes through in the performance; working through pain and grief. We were lucky enough to have found a group of people willing to take an emotional journey with us and we believe this comes through on the album; more or less finding a lit path through a dark forest.

There is an in depth concept behind the songs, and the order in which they come, but all in all these songs are about struggle, loss, love, redemption and the healing process through getting to know who you are. It is, for the most part, a self-reflection; an introspection if you will. These heavy ideas all tie into individual moments with our fathers (aptly named) who have passed away (one of cancer and the other of heart complications). It’s about dealing with that loss and trying to piece together the life events that followed that make us the people we are. We love and miss them dearly, and we are grateful to them for teaching us to be the people we are. We all have faults in our beliefs, politics, morality, and personality – but at the end of the day the best we can hope for is that tomorrow we will be a slightly better version of ourselves than the day prior.

Who did you work with as a producer? What kind of experience did you have with them?

For the full length we had the opportunity to work with Jacob Winik at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco, and mixed the record with Chris Rudy over at Imperial Audio. Tiny Telephone is known for being an all analog studio which made it an ideal location to pursue the type of raw production we felt was missing from movements. Recording to tape put significant constraints on the process, but it also pushed us to deliver our best. Jacob’s philosophy is to capture a performance in the studio so we spend less time second guessing every detail and think about how the music felt. We wanted it to sound human.

We were really happy with what came out of those sessions but felt like there were some compositional elements that were missing which is where Chris at Imperial Audio allowed us to hone in on. We spent another year recording additional instruments, vocals, cellos, and keyboards. It was a humbling, and exhausting experience, but one that allowed us the time to really shape “funeral pyre” as close as we could to how we initially envisioned it.

Although it veered from the EP – we’re incredibly proud of this record. We’ve put in a lot of time and effort into this product, and we feel like this was a great learning experience for us. We are pretty DIY and we feel like at this point – we are going to take what we’ve learned and try to apply it to our future endeavours.

What bands are some of your biggest influences?

We’d say the biggest influences are Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, and Mars Volta. We drew a lot on influences from a lot of bands and from a lot of our friends in bands as well.

If you could tour with any 3 bands, past or present, who would you choose?

Past:

Beloved (US)

Present:

Gatherers

La Dispute

Do you have any tour plans to help spread the word about the release?

We’re planning to do a short tour of the Pacific Northwest in September and are currently in the process of looking out for local bands in Seattle and Portland areas to play shows with.

Otherwise we are looking to play more shows in the Bay Area, and the surrounding areas, and start to branch out on short weekend tours as jobs and schedules allow

What’s it been like to be independent and release your own material?

We compare the band to running a small business with close friends. It can be tough but at the end of the day communication is a keystone element in making decisions and having a synced calendar. We have gotten to a point where we use a program called Slack (a fancy messenger app) to organize our band communication and vote on things when we aren’t sure. A lot of the DIY ethos of this project came out of the initial reception to movements and wanting to give back to the people who support us the best way we can

It’s a lot of planning, arguing, drinking, and hard work, sacrifice, and compromise. A lot of late nights. A lot working and reworking, doing and redoing. However, having to do a majority of it ourselves makes it incredibly rewarding in the long run and definitely pushes us to work on skills we didn’t know we had. Every small win comes with the feeling of euphoria and makes it all worth the uphill climb that is writing and playing music.

If you could be signed to any label, which would you hope for?

It’s hard to say. A lot of the bands we enjoy are signed with some pretty interesting labels. We do enjoy working independently, but we’d eventually like a bit of help with getting the word out, booking shows, marketing, and publicity. We have seen a lot of new up-and-coming labels with amazing lineups as well. We have even toyed with the idea of creating our own label. But I guess we’ll see what the future holds.

What albums are you all most looking forward to this year?

TOOL (dear god – please let this come out already)

Gatherers (By the time this gets out – the new album will be out!)

La Dispute

This Will Destroy You

Thrice

Defeater

FKA Twigs

Childish Gambino

Joan of Arc

Pedro The Lion

If there was one song you all would love to cover, what would that be?

Second Best – Pedro The Lion. This song is indicative of the emotions we want to convey. And to top it off – how heavy and unwaveringly powerful the lyrics are.

Is there anything you’d like to tell your current or future fan base?

One word: Gratitude.

Honestly, we were not expecting anyone to like our music, let alone listen to it and support us by buying it. We just wanted to write music about our dead dads, share a stage with old friends, share beers and stories with new friends, and play music that we would listen to when we need to heal from a shitty life event and to convey that there is hope in difficult times. We really really appreciate every single one of you and we’d love to meet you all one day!