On September 13th, I met up with Sebu Simonian and Ryan Merchant of Capital Cities at their Burbank studio. They were preparing for their East Coast tour, but were kind enough to take some time out to tell me about the birth of Capital Cities and why I can’t get “Safe and Sound” out of my head. Not that I really want to.
AB: You guys played a great show the other night at Bootleg!
RM: Thank you.
SS: Thanks.
AB: I loved the stereoheads! Who makes those?
RM: We actually made those. Conceptualized them. Made it happen.
SS: I don’t even remember how the idea came about. We like visuals like glow sticks and L wires. We had a friend who had a bunch of L wire lying around and we thought, “Hey, what if we use this and make stereoheads out of it and dance around with it?” We like to experiment with every show and try to make it interesting so one show we decided to bring in some dancers. We thought maybe they could use these stereoheads as part of their dance and it was really cool, so we ended up holding on to the stereoheads and using them as props.
RM: They were inspired by our song “I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo”. We wanted to somehow personifying this stereo that you don’t want to sell. So that was the original inspiration.
AB: So where are you each from originally?
RM: I was born and raised in San Francisco, and I came to Los Angeles back in 1999.
SS: I was born in Syria. My family traveled all over the Middle East in the early part of my childhood, mostly in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Ethnically, my family is Armenian, but we moved to the states in ’85, when I was 6 years old. I’ve been in LA ever since. It’s my hometown; I love it.
AB: I read somewhere that you two originally met on craigslist.
RM: We did. Either I put out an ad looking for someone to help me produce songs or Sebu put out an ad saying that he was a producer looking for clients and we just connected in that way. We started working together on some songs of mine and then fell into the commercial writing thing.
SS: Yeah it was cool. Timing is important. We got lucky that we both were looking for people to collaborate with at the same time, and it just worked out.
AB: So did you make a conscious decision to start a band or were you just playing music together for fun?
RM: We had been working together on composing work, and through collaborating with each other over the years, we just had a lot of songs or ideas for songs that we had written and ultimately wanted to flesh out and turn into some kind of project. So, about a year and a half ago, we decided to finish off some of the songs and release an EP and ultimately start a band, which wasn’t really in my mind. We decided to make it this dual frontman thing because we both write the songs and we’re both singers. So, it just kind of came about because we had good songs laying around and we felt like it would be a shame not to get out there and perform them.
AB: How did you come up with the name “Capital Cities”?
RM: It came about through an Instant Message conversation that we were having. We were trying to come up with a band name and it was just a back and forth thing. Band names are probably one of the most annoying things to try to find because nothing really sounds cool until the music is cool. It’s very difficult to find a good band name. I think I wrote, “Capital of Maine.” Then Sebu fired back with “Capital Cities”, and we were both just like, “That’s it!”
AB: Well, your live performances have such a great energy, but in particular, when you guys play “Safe and Sound” the crowd always goes completely insane. Did you realize that there was something extra special about that song when you wrote it?
SS: I would say so, and that’s evidenced by the fact that when we first wrote it, we knew that we needed to do it right. We ended up literally recording maybe ten versions of the song before we settled on the latest version that we released as part of the EP. This version is fun and energetic. We felt really confident about the song and wanted to get it right so we spent a lot of time on it.
RM: Yeah, it was just one of those songs that, even in it’s first incarnation, which was a very simple, stripped down demo, not even a full-length song, people just automatically responded to it. Everybody that listened to it just loved it, even in that very basic form. We knew that it had the potential to be really epic, but it just took a long time to get it to that point.
AB: What was the inspiration for “Safe and Sound”?
SS: Well, I think “Safe and Sound” is a positive song. It’s about looking at the world in a positive light because there’s always going to be negative things all around you and bad things are going to happen all the time. There’s always some kind of war going on somewhere or some kind of natural disaster or in your personal life there’s a problem, money problems or relationship problems, you know? It’s supposed to remind you that where there’s the bad, there’s also the good. It’s a yin and yang kind of a world. Even if the sky is falling down, if you’re on my side, we’re safe and sound. You know, if we stick together, if we love each other, we’ll be fine at the end of the day. It depicts some Armegeddon-type scenes, but at the end of the day, everything’s fine and everything is good and beautiful.
RM: Yeah, it’s an acknowledgement of the resilience of the human race. Every generation thinks that the time that they’re living in is the worst time ever. People in the ‘60s were saying, “The world’s going to shit. These wars are happening.” They thought everything was going to be terrible and here we are now. Somehow, human beings are able to adapt and figure out how to solve their problems. I believe that the human race, despite the bad things that are happening in the world, is generally getting better and that life, for most people, is becoming more positive and the standard of living is going up. It’s this optimistic hopefulness for the human race and how we’re going to do well in the end.
AB: So what does your process look like when you’re writing?
SS: I think every song has it’s own story. But generally, you know, we just kind of go in without thinking about what needs to be done and just start. It could start with Ryan coming up with an interesting keyboard arpeggio and then I’ll chime in with a beat and then constantly we’ll be humming or singing melodies or throwing out words. It’s a very organic process. And we both do a lot of things in the production process: programming, playing the instruments, writing. It’s a pretty collaborative experience. Sometime’s it comes together really fast, sometimes it takes a long time, but usually it’s pretty 50/50.
RM: Yeah, as far as the contributions, definitely. Also, we have been writing for TV commercials for the past three years. So, that has helped us to work faster, because when you work on TV ads, the turn around time is very quick. A lot of times clients will say, “We want you to write a song that sounds like a hit, it’s due tomorrow, and it has to be produced well.” So that experience has taught us how to work a lot faster and be less precious with the things that we’re working on. The inspiration’s either there or it’s not. You shouldn’t sit there and pine over something that’s not working. We usually know very quickly if a song is going to work out. We just wrote this new song called “Kangaroo Court” that we debuted at a recent show and that just happened so fast and the chorus came together quickly. Usually lyrics are the hardest part.
AB: When you two are collaborating, do you find that you take on specific roles in the process?
RM: That’s a good question.
SS: We definitely have different personalities, but somehow we end up realizing that we think the same way most of the time. I think we’re both very hands on. We’re go-getters. We’re control freaks.
RM: Sebu is more the optimist and I’m more the pessimist. That’s probably the starkest contrast. Sebu’s the ultimate optimist, and deep-down I’m actually very optimistic too, but I definitely over-analyze things and worry. Sebu reassures me.
SS: Interestingly, his, pessimism and my optimism, ultimately both end up helping the cause. Sometimes I’m too optimistic and sometimes he’s too pessimistic, and when we just have a discussion, we end up being exactly where we need to be which is somewhere in the middle. So, I think it’s a good balance actually. Luckily, 9 times out of 10, we agree on the same things. We have similar tastes in music, so if I like an idea, he’ll probably like it and vice-versa. And if there’s an idea that we disagree on, we don’t dwell over it. We kind of just let it go because that must mean that that idea could have been a good idea, but it was probably not a great idea, you know? We want all our moments in the songs to be great. We don’t want to settle for anything mediocre.
AB: What are your biggest musical influences?
SS: Well, I’ve been doing music all my life. All kinds of music. So it comes from everywhere. I’ve studied music, I’ve taken piano lessons, I got a degree in Music. I’ve done Opera, and I’ve been in choirs. I’ve been in cover bands that have done Pink Floyd and Beatles and all that stuff. I’ve had my own bands in the late ‘90s and early part of this decade that were kind of alternative, moody rock bands. So it’s really all over the place. But, these days, I definitely lean towards Electronic music, and I love the production styles of Royksopp, Air, and Underworld. I would like to take that style and write catchier, more mainstream songs over that kind of production. That’s where I would like to find myself.
RM: Musically, my earliest influence is definitely Michael Jackson, much like many people my age. I definitely owned a silver glove and watched Thriller every day and learned the dance moves. So, I think I got the performance bug and the music bug from Michael Jackson. He’s what inspired me initially. I also like a lot of like Stevie Wonder, a lot of funky music. I was way into Jamiroquai back in the late ‘90s when I was in high school. Nowadays, I have very similar musical taste as Sebu. I love Air, Phoenix, Royksopp, and Zero Seven. I also like a lot of pop music.
AB: So it seems that when people review your music, everyone gets particularly excited about the Juno.
SS: Yeah, well, the Juno is a classic, analog synth from the early ‘80s and we use it to get that analog warmth. Most of our production is in the box and we use logic, so to get that little outboard gear flavor, we use the Juno and it blends perfectly with the digital stuff. It’s become a signature part of our sound.
AB: So tell me about Capital Cities on tour.
SS: We just played in San Francisco at an event called PopScene that Aaron Axelsen puts together every Thursday and it was such a great night. Ryan is originally from San Francisco, so he’s got a lot of friends that came out and supported us, but there was also a really cool fanbase that we didn’t even really know about that showed up. They were very supportive and we had a great time. It was at a great venue called The Rickshaw Stop. We also have an East Coast tour that’s right around the corner. We’re going to play about 7 or 8 dates on the East Coast and Canada. That will be our first official tour and we’re really excited.
AB: So, what’s next for you guys after you get back form the East Coast tour?
SS: Definitely, working on the album. We want to release a full-length album in the early part of next year, maybe in the Spring. There aren’t any set plans for the release but we definitely have that in mind. We’ve got about fifteen or sixteen songs that will probably end up on the album. We’re going to focus on that, and then also just keep planning more shows and continue touring. We’re going to try to balance the two.
AB: So are either of you working on any personal, side projects right now?
SS: Um, little things. There’s this amazing duduk player named, Jivan Gasparyan Jr., and I’m working on a couple songs with him.
RM: Yeah, no side projects for me right now. I did buy a sketch pad though. We spend so much time on music that I feel like I need a new outlet sometimes to get away from music. Otherwise, you can start to feel like your life is getting a little bit one-dimensional when you work on music for commercials all day and you have a band. So, I’m still trying to find another outlet to explore. We’ve been talking about doing an NPR voice parody. It’s such a great station. There are some very unique accents and voices on there and we like to do impersonations.
SS: Yeah. Actually, Ryan’s got some interesting YouTube video ideas as well, comedy stuff that we might incorporate Capital Cities music into. We’ll see where it goes. The sky’s the limit!
No comments:
Post a Comment