MCB's Al Bruting had a chance to talk to the guys from Citizen Smile before releasing a new record tonight at the Loving Touch Ferndale
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tonight!
Citizen Smile
Album Release Show
The Loving Touch Ferndale
Friday 11/22/2013
wsg
The Ill Itches
Haunted House
Interview by Al Bruting (Rockhounding)
MCB - Tell us about the musical journey you have
taken since you decided to pick up instruments.
You were friends.... Who was the
first to pick up an instrument, and was it the guitar or something else? Who
did you want to be like and how did that change over time?
James and Kory started playing around thirteen
years old. James originally played keyboard because he felt awkward just singing
but was too lazy to learn to play guitar. While in Smile, James started a side
project when he was twenty one called Firs and Spruces. He asked me to be his
bass player even though I was just his server at mongolian barbecue and I
didn't know how to play bass. I went to high school with Will and knew him as
the drum guy. So I told James we should meet him at Wendy's and see if he
wanted to vein the band. He did. After the bass player left Smile, I was asked
to join. A few months later, Will did the same as the drummer left. We have all
grown together over the last three years and our deep rooted friendship has
helped shape us as artists and made this album what it is.
MCB -
Talking about your friendship, does it make it easier to write and play music together
or harder? Do you feel it contributes instrumentally or lyrically?
MCB - All
music has some influences that comes through in varying levels. When your crafting your music is any part of
the creative process influenced by a desired outcome of wanting to sound like
something specific. For example, there
was a time period when John Lennon wanted to be Elvis and this could be both
heard and seen. Was there an artists or a
sound you had in the foreground writing of any of the songs on the new release
and if so tell us about that.
When James and Kory started playing together ten
years ago or so, it was all about Weezer and The Get Up Kids. MXPX was the
first band the two ever bonded over. Obviously we are in a totally different
spot now. Main influences for this record were Tokyo Police Club and Yuck. On
Leslie, James wrote the song with Feist in mind and we wrote our parts with
Limbeck in the back of our heads. At the end of Right Here, all we could hear
ourselves doing was throwing in a Wilco style instrumental jam. So influences
for us definitely vary from song to song.
MCB -
These influences will often be heard in earlier work and your sound develops
and evolves over time into something purely your own. Have you noticed this in happening in your
musical catalogue?
MCB -
Give us your process on songwriting. Is
it shared, does one guy bring in a thought that the others help him finish, or
is the song written and then the parts played like studio jocks with prearranged book to follow adding some flavor only. Does a song happen quickly? Talk about crafting the tracks on the new
release.
It varies from song to song. A Plan came
together in no time. James brought it to the table, we wrote parts to it and it
came out pretty much how you hear it today. But People I've Done Wrong is a
whole other story. James brought it to us as a low key folk tune and we just
couldn't get it to work. So we jammed on the progression until we found a new
groove for the song. Then abandoned James's old part entirely and rearranged
the format of the song. The original version is barely even a ghost of the
current song. Some songs weren't even finished being written until we got in
the studio. Right Here was super open ended. We even turned off the click track
at one point and just saw where the song would take us. So the writing for this
album was definitely approached many different ways.
MCB - As
for the future, where do you see yourself going? Is there a plan to hit the road, are you
currently traveling around or outside Michigan and do those plans include any
festivals or double bills with other groups?
MCB - One
of the challenges a lot of bands hit is the decision to pick the band over the
day job or the demands of relationships and family. How has this impacted you so far what’s
helped bring balance and make it manageable if its occurred?
Will and I really would like to do music full
time and hit the road. James and Kory, understandably, don't share the same
interest to do music full time due to work and family life. So we are going to
do as much with Smile as we can from Detroit. We made an album we all really
believe in and we just really want people to hear it.
MCB – You are throwing a CD release party November
22nd at the Loving Touch. Can
you give us a preview on what we might see?
We have two AMAZING bands opening up for us and
both are good friends. Haunted House is made up of four gentlemen that have
been making music and inspiring us for years. The Ill Itches are great friends
of ours who have tons of energy and a super fun live performance.
Our album
will be available for $2 tonight ONLY.
This will also be the only night we
will play the album from front to back in it's entirety.
So it will be a
special night.