What do you want people to take away from your music?
Helen: I’d like for people to just feel connected to it, and I think that you could be like, ‘oh, I wish my music meant some kind of grandiose thing to someone in some way’ and stuff. But I think the reality is that people kind of can connect to anything if it just kind of hits whatever they need inside. If somebody just kind of gets something out of it that kind of makes their day better or just makes them feel seen, then I feel like that’s a success.
Tyler: Yeah, I agree. I think at the end of the day, it’s like if someone gets this grandiose idea and the songs are super personal to them, that’s sick. Someone’s also coming to a show just because they like loud, fast music and they get some out of that. As long as the music is making people happy and giving them some kind of enjoyment at the end of the day, I think that is the goal.
What is your songwriting process like?
Helen: It kind of varies because, well, you don’t know this yet, but we have some new music cooking. It’s just interesting because we could answer this question, but you haven’t heard the product I would be referring to.
Tyler: In terms of See You in Chemistry, our last album. I would say songwriting. It really happens one of two ways. Lucas does a lot of the songwriting, our front person, Lucas. And sometimes he will come to us with a fully realized idea, just like, hey, here’s a song that I wrote. I would like to have it for this project. And we would spend time just shopping it for a full band setting. A lot of times. Also, we will start with just, like, an idea. Literally like a song idea or a guitar riff and go from there and literally put it together like a puzzle. It really depends on the song. Something like our song, Not My Job. We wrote literally from the ground up. I think we started that song with just like, that first verse and went from there. I was like, what if we put in some big hits and that’s the chorus. Other songs like Headaches. That song was written front to back by Lucas. He came to us, he said, ‘hey, I have this crazy song.’ And we loved it and we put music to it. It’s really. It’s really one or the other, I would say.
It seems like the fact that you’re from Philadelphia is important to you as a band. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Tyler: Yeah, sure. We love our city. I can speak for both of us in that. Philly’s is one of the, if not the best city in the US, the best! There’s a lot of things that contribute to it. It’s a great city in the sense of. For sports, food, travel, all that good stuff. But also, music is big, and it’s not just like, our genres, it’s genres from everywhere.
The R & B and hip-hop scene in Philly, all the way to lo fi. Like, there’s just so much good music in the city and so much inspiration to pull from. And it’s also great because it’s a good place to go if you want to fit in somewhere. There’s not just one music scene in the city. I would say you could make a case that there’s, like, infinite music scenes because you have, let’s say, our music scene.
Say, like, the emo scene or DIY or whatever. But then even in that, you have, like, okay, this is the music scene specifically around this college that the people that go to the shows go to that college and don’t really go to the other areas. Like, I would say being from Philly is a big thing for us and also, a lot of bands came before us, had a huge impact in our playstyle.
Helen: Yeah, it’s kind of like an honor to be from the same city that has so many legends in our genre and scene. And really, we just wouldn’t be anything without the city of Philadelphia, like, believing in us and supporting us from the go. That’s why we are where we are is because they pushed.
Tyler: Cool. A cool example of that is, like, there’s this venue called the First Unitarian Church in Philly that it’s literally the basement of a random church that has just been having punk shows for the last. I don’t even know, like, 20 years maybe. And we have all seen some crazy shows. We’ve both seen some crazy shows there when we were younger and then just getting into the scene. The fact that we got to play a venue like that was really special to us. And I’m not sure if every city in the country has stuff like that where it’s, like, the legendary spot.
Helen: Also, a cool example is people talk about the waves of emo, like, one of the waves of emo before the current wave we’re in, which, I mean, that’s all fucking semantics. But the band Algernon Cadwallader was a band that’s just always been super cool that they’re from Philly. Just, like, legendary stuff looked up to a lot, and then we were able to record See You in Chemistry with their guitarist, Joe Reinhardt. And it’s just, like, really cool, full circle moments like that. And the Philly community is just really so much closer knit than we think. And that’s really cool to see.
Some of the content of your lyrics is about, like, extreme anxiety or battling mental illness. Is it difficult to be so vulnerable when songwriting or performing those songs?
Tyler: It’s definitely a Lucas question.
Helen: Yeah, this is a Lucas question, But I think that he likes vulnerability.
Tyler: If I could answer this for Lucas, but also for myself. Vulnerability is something that makes music and the connection that people have with music special.
Helen: Right.
Tyler: Because if you weren’t being vulnerable, if you were just, like, on the mic talking about some fake shit, like, surface level, no one would relate to it. You know what I mean? Or they would relate to it for the wrong reason. So, the vulnerability, I think, is a part that makes it special to a lot of people.
Helen: People want to hear somebody else address the things that they’re scared to confront themselves. That’s when you really get connection. Anyone could write a song about, I don’t know, going to the grocery store. But, yeah, I think that Lucas is very courageous for the way he writes lyrics and it’s definitely not something that I could do personally.
Tyler: He puts a lot out there. He puts a lot out, yeah.
Helen: I think he is extremely skilled in his lyricism, and it makes me very proud to be in a band with somebody like that. And I think he only gets better at it, too. And I think with the new music I discussed, you will see that he just ups himself, and it’s not even like, he’s like, oh, I need to write the craziest lyrics. I think he just–
Tyler: It just happens. It just happens naturally.
Helen: It’s just really cool to watch as a friend and fellow artist.
What’s the process of making a music video, like, specifically, Munck?
Tyler: Yeah. So, it’s really funny that music video is made. Like, we made that music video before our debut album, which was, like, obviously before we have a lot of resources. We did that video strictly DIY, our photographer, and actually, merch person on this run, Santo, recorded it. He’s a videographer. And it was a concept that we came up with ourselves. We casted the whole thing ourselves. We just had friends act in it and be, like, background. All the locations were just places around Philly or, like, homes we lived in. It was over the span of, like, I think, three days. And it was just like, we’re going to do it ourselves. We’re going to do a low budget, and we’re just going to make it happen. And it worked out really cool. Truthfully, we’ve had music video situations that we go in with an idea, and what comes out is not really what you were going for or even a product at all, because a lot of music videos, there’s a lot of factors that go into it. Yeah.
Helen: Sometimes we try to do a music video, and we have no money, and we blow a fuse in abandoned garage.
Tyler: Yeah, we lose all power. That happens, too. It’s definitely hard to do for bands that are not already established because you only have so many resources, but they’re a lot of fun.
Helen: Yeah.
Tyler: And it’s cool to get to put a visual component to your art, because music can only. I feel like music is such a powerful tool, but it is also a vessel that can only take you so far. I feel like a lot of people will put music in their car and almost tune it out and it be like the background soundtrack to whatever they’re doing, whereas something like a music video is something that holds your attention, audio and visual, and it truly breathes life into the art piece, I would say.
Helen: Yeah, that’s very well said. And it was also really cool to be able to have this finished product that we’re very proud of that we can say that ten of our good friends got to be involved with, and not even just acting, but helping with camera work or lighting or set design, like, stuff like that. It was really cool to get to. We’re really proud of that.
Tyler: One of the proudest things I think we’ve done as a band outside of the music is just, like, the fact that we were able to organize it, shoot it, and it’s the quality that it is.
Helen: We were really happy with it, and our friend Santo worked really hard on that, and I think a lot of his capabilities really showed through. I think also it’s interesting to note that it wasn’t, like, three consecutive days. It was, like, three random days that we all had to have off of work, because we all have jobs outside of this, because it’s very hard to make money doing music, and we all have crazy schedules, different jobs that we would just have to find the days where our schedules aligned and bang it out.
Tyler: High stress, high risk, high reward.
Helen: Just trying to make it happen, but, wow, we’re so burnout some days.
Tyler: Yeah, sure.
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