Lobsterfest Q&A: Sweet Lil
By Marc Blanc, Reviews Editor
What is the debut EP to a seasoned band? Something to hide away, or perhaps material for the record label to dust off at the group's prime? Neither seems plausible for Sweet Lil', because when Harold Bon and Hannah Cook are inevitably touring far off from their Athens home, Words of Dying will still be a crisp, circulated record. Released last week to local acclaim, the four-song effort is a superlative introduction to the gloomy, distorted duo. Frontwoman Cook took time from her studies and growing musical obligations to speak on the EP, her dynamic with Bon and the future of Sweet Lil'.
Can you tell me a bit about opening for Cymbals Eat Guitars? How was the crowd? What were the highlights? That was a truly sweet moment that I felt very fortunate to be a part of. To be honest, I had never heard of Cymbals Eat Guitars until I learned of the show happening at The Skull. I listened to them right away, read a bit about what they’ve been up to and immediately felt giddy and nervous with excitement thinking about opening for such a neato band.
The show itself was a blast. The crowd was as supportive as ever, although I tend to focus too much on not forgetting the words, not messing up on guitar and sometimes getting pretty “into it” to truly observe how the crowd is responding to us. I still have yet to figure out the whole performing thing.
The highlights of our set were probably me not forgetting any words and not commenting on the smelliness of the microphone. Also looking down and seeing my friends in front of me was a very happy moment. Highlights of the night were definitely just all of the awesome music that followed us: Nightstalker, Split Single, Cymbals. All of those bands were great and it definitely felt too good to be true to be part of such a lineup.
Are you pleased with the reception of your new EP? Very pleased! Thank you very much to anyone and everyone who even gave us a minute out of their day to listen to it. I’m still not sure how this whole “band” thing works, so pretty much anything makes me feel grateful and also very nervous. But if there’s one thing I’ve recognized, it’s the mighty support the people of Athens have given us. What was the process of recording the EP like? Where was it recorded, and what were some obstacles while recording? The process of recording for me was extremely nerve-wracking. I had only ever recorded crappy acoustic recordings from the comfort of my bedroom, where only my pet rat heard me and didn’t pay much attention anyway.
Because it was my first time creating music like this, with another person and much more professionally than anything I’ve ever done, it took me a while to feel comfortable--especially with the vocals. In fact, I’m still not comfortable! It took us a lot longer than it probably should have, and we originally intended to have six songs on the EP. But I’m also in graduate school and have to keep that a priority, so recording was put on the back burner many times. But Harold was very patient with me through it all. Not to mention, he did the whole dang thing. All I had to do was record my guitar and vocals. He did alllllllll the rest and did a mighty fine job at that. How do you two bring your own unique tastes to Sweet Lil'? Do you ever have disagreements on how a song should sound? I pretty much write the songs and bring them as foundations to practice. They’re written on acoustic guitar with meek little vocals, but Harold envisions them as much bigger, more dynamic sounds. I kind of let Harold take the songs where he thinks they should go. He’s the drummer, but he has a knack for all things musical and I trust his judgment. While we definitely have our own musical interests, we overlap too. We both love doomier, melodic sounds and aim to have similar characteristics in our songs.
Where does Sweet Lil go from here? Are you going to tour? Record more material? What are your plans for the immediate future?
Half of Sweet Lil’ has already graduated while the other half, me, will graduate this May. After that, we both will conveniently be moving to Cincinnati and we plan to keep playing more shows around Ohio and maybe even beyond! That’d sure be cool.
We have enough material for either a couple EPs or a full-length. We’re still not sure exactly where we want to go with that. We will kind of play it by ear once we get settled into Cincinnati. The immediate future…we’re playing a show in Toledo at Culture Clash Records on Record Store Day. I can’t even believe we were asked to play that and am real excited. We have a show at The Lodge next Tuesday, which I think will be the final show at The Lodge maybe ever (Waaaaa!!) Then we’re playing Lobsterfest at Habibis and fingers crossed we’ll get free falafel.
