Interview: Choir Vandals On 'At Night'
By Chris Reinbold
Choir Vandals is a garage-rock band with a modern twist. The band has toured with one of today’s emo giants, Dads and hardcore upstarts Capsize. The guys are about to release a 7” called At Night. The band’s singer, guitarist, lyricist and awesome dude-extraordinaire, Austin McCutchen, joined me on the phone one rainy Athens afternoon to talk about the upcoming release on 6131.
Note: Per Austin’s request, I made sure to spell Wil’s name with only one “L.” You’re welcome, bud!
Your first EP, Darker Days, what did you guys set out to do with that? Did you just go record some songs and hope they sound good? [laughs]
Austin McCutchen, Choir Vandals: With that, at first, I had written like three of the songs already. This was around the time that all of our bands broke up. I just kept writing, pretty much. Then I hit up Wil (drums) and was like “Hey, I have some songs, do you wanna jam?” He was like, “Yeah!” Then, I brought Josh (bass) with me and so we wrote pretty much a song a week with that. It was just like the three of us at first, and we had booked the studio time and were getting ready to record. We were like “You know, we should get a lead guitarist.” Micah (guitar) was just the obvious choice. He has been my best friend and he’s just awesome. He joined right before we recorded. It was as soon as the songs were written that we recorded it.
On the new one, At Night, did you guys produce that yourselves? Where did you go or did you have someone work with you?
Yeah. We produced and wrote it all ourselves. We recorded with an engineer that was one of Wil’s friends. He actually teaches audio engineering at a school that Wil went to. He actually built his own studio out in the middle of nowhere in Illinois. It was like a house. Basically, the basement was the live room, where you record everything. The middle level was his living room, his kitchen, where he would sleep, the bedrooms. Then the attic, which was really cool, was where the control room was. It was where all his mixing boards and gear were.
Production-wise, I thought it was perfect how each instrument sat in its own pocket, there was no bleeding.
Hell, yeah. Thank you. I know when I was talking to him about the kind of sound, mixing-wise, I brought up, and he even brought up to me first, Tokyo Police Club’s first EP. He was like, “I wanted to go more toward this mix-wise,” and I said, “Yeah. That’s perfect!”
Along the lines of recording and production, when you guys tracked, how did you do it? Did you guys track live, as a full band, and then overdub like solos and vocals over top or did you do it individually?
We pretty much had Wil and I record together to keep the time and make it sound more real. Then, Josh recorded by himself and Micah recorded by himself. I did vocals over everything.
Everything just comes together more organically with the live-tracking deal, like you and Wil did. It feels less robotic. Are you guys signed with anyone now? Who’s putting out the EP?
We’re on 6131, now. They’re based out of Los Angeles.
How did your past experiences, be it touring, recording, past records, your hometown or where you grow up factor into your sound? Overall and recently on the new one.
I feel like this new EP is a lot more Midwestern, you could say. It is a lot colder. It’s something I think of when I think Midwest, cold and bland. I think that definitely factors in a lot more. I try to use my surroundings a little more. I think before, I wanted to sound more like a beachy band. I don’t know, I’ve been guilty of that in the past. So, I was like, “You know what, I live here. I might as well embrace it. Try to soak it in, as much as possible.”
Who were your primary influences? I really feel that, to me, at least, the vocals were very Julian Casablancas.
Oh, thank you! This new one is a lot of The Strokes, a lot of earlier Arctic Monkeys. I started listening to a lot more Sonic Youth on this one, too.
That definitely explains the noisier guitar interludes.
Yeah, there’s a Sonic Youth and Fugazi-type vibe on a couple of them. It was a lot of that and then Neva Dinova, they’re not a band any more, but they’re my favorite band. They’re a constant, mainly with melodies. Neva Dinova influences a lot of my vocal melodies, I would say. Those are, for this record, at least, the main influences.
A lot of the vocal melodies are really memorable. How do you write such a catchy part? Do you focus more on the lyrics?
Usually, how I approach vocals is that I write the song first, on guitar. Then, it’s like I’ll just lie in bed and keep repeating the song and just try new things, until I find one that I like. That’s just one of two ways. I’ll either do that, I’ll keep singing until I find something that I like or randomly, I’ll just get a melody in my head and then I think, “I need to put this somewhere,” and then I’ll write the song to that melody. More often than not, though, it’s the first one. It kinda just comes out after enough time.
Similarly, when you write lyrics, do you base them around that melody or do you have lyrics and try to fit them in?
Usually what I’ll do is come up with the melody, first. I will have lyrics in mind, but I want to get the melody right. I’ll go back in and fit what I want to say into the confines of the melody.
With lyrics, do you try to be really vague, in order to be relatable? Or do you think, “I want to tell a story with whatever mood this music has given me.”
It is a mixture. Sometimes I’ll be vague on purpose, but a lot of times I try to put as much detail or emotion into it. It depends on different parts of the song. I like to go by the mood of the parts, a lot. If it’s a very detailed part, then I’ll try to go more detailed with the lyrics. If a part has a wide open, bizarre feel. I will be really open with the lyrics.
