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| (Double Grave by Tessa Loeffler) |
(L to R: Seth Tracy, Bree Meyer, & Jeremy Warden)
Well hello everybody. Welcome to Flatbasset's first ever interview!
If you've been following the blog for the last couple of years (or even the last couple of days), you probably know that I'm a tremendous fan Minneapolis rock band Double Grave. Dating back to their early days as Ego Death I've been following their career and playing their songs on the podcast at every opportunity.
Just last Friday (4/27) they released the latest EP Empty Hands on Forged Artifacts (cassette) and Sad Cactus (7"). It's a straight-ahead ripper of a four song EP clocking in at just 10 minutes and I highly suggest you purchase it today and listen to it later today. To support Empty Hands the band is somehow mounting both a quick tour of the Midwest as well as holding down a residency at the Kitty Cat Klub each Tuesday in May beginning 4/1.
To mark the occasion I reached out to Double Grave singer/guitarist Jeremy Warden to see if he was interested in chatting a little bit about the new EP & the upcoming shows. He was kind enough to trade e-mails with me.
Flatbasset: How does it feel to have Empty Hands out in the world? Do you feel any nerves on release day?
Jeremy: It feels great! We took our time letting this out in the world, so, we definitely all feel relieved to finally show it to people. Release day wasn't so nerve wracking this time because we didn't have a show, our release show is two days from when I write this and I'm sure we'll all be a bit nervous then just hoping everyone has a good time and we play well, but we're mostly just excited and grateful about everything regardless.
FB: Why did the band decide to release an EP rather than save the songs for a larger project?
JW: That's a good question! Mostly we just wanted to make a 7". It's just a band goal we had because we all enjoy the format and thought it'd be fun to make one of our own, something short and fun and loud. Our last record was sort of a slow burner, very melancholic and cold, and that was what we wanted but when we play live it's a bit more quick and noisy, so representing that side of us on a release also felt important moving forward.
FB: On a related note - Were the songs on Empty Hands written specifically with this specific project in mind?
JW: I think I answered this above but yup basically! Some other songs were written at around the same time but those will see their own release some future day probably.
FB: What was the impetus behind doing a dual release with Sad Cactus & Forged Artifacts?
JW: There are a few reasons I was excited about the dual release. Primarily, I genuinely admire what each label has been doing recently. This is our second release with Sad Cactus, they helped out with our last record and we have made some good friends through them, some of my favorite releases of recent years are from fellow cacti.
And I would say the same about Forged Artifacts, they had an incredible catalogue of music last year.
Sad Cactus is mostly an East Coast operation, which has been fun for us, but we also take a lot of pride in being from the Midwest, and I think Forged Artifacts is one of, if not the coolest Minnesota label, so I've wanted to work together for a while. Since we wanted to release the EP on two physical formats (7" & Cassette) I thought each label could take on one side of things and all together make something really exciting.
FB: Do you have a preferred medium for new music?
JW: Honestly I don't even know. Music is everywhere these days. I do love physical artifacts of music. I love to hold it in my hands and knowing that it's mine and I can listen to it whenever I want, it won't disappear off the internet or in a lost hard drive. And I appreciate the different effects formats have on music. Like, having listened to our EP on three formats, it's wild hearing how different each one sounds.
I started getting into tapes because my van has a tape player and that's my favorite place to listen to music, and tapes offer a certain power to DIY bands that I appreciate, because of their cost and compact size. In my life though, the biggest sign of appreciation for a record is buying the LP if that exists. CDs are cool, but, I just always break them somehow. But let's be real I mostly stream stuff on Youtube and Bandcamp.
JW: Honestly I don't even know. Music is everywhere these days. I do love physical artifacts of music. I love to hold it in my hands and knowing that it's mine and I can listen to it whenever I want, it won't disappear off the internet or in a lost hard drive. And I appreciate the different effects formats have on music. Like, having listened to our EP on three formats, it's wild hearing how different each one sounds.
I started getting into tapes because my van has a tape player and that's my favorite place to listen to music, and tapes offer a certain power to DIY bands that I appreciate, because of their cost and compact size. In my life though, the biggest sign of appreciation for a record is buying the LP if that exists. CDs are cool, but, I just always break them somehow. But let's be real I mostly stream stuff on Youtube and Bandcamp.
FB: Lyrically, with a few exceptions, the songs on Empty Hands are more personal than political? Do you ever have to fight the urge to get political or is that just not something that seeps into your songwriting?
JW: To me Empty Hands feels political in a sort of ambiguous way. But you're right we're not an overtly political band. This EP is more about feeling lost and doubting yourself than anything else. I've mostly written about feelings and questions and haven't tried to spread any sort of message. I have a hard time being really direct in lyrics, in terms of a specific political point. I feel that it locks the song in a time and place, and if a song is going to live a long life with people, it has to be relevant over time.
That said I feel like at this time the world is on a dangerous edge, and I want to use this privileged platform of playing music to speak to that and help insight change more so now than in the past, but I think I'll always end up speaking broadly about things, even if there is a deeper political intent.
FB: Empty Hands is a brisk 4-song-in-10-minutes release that has its hooks front-and-center. Some past Ego Death/Double Grave material ("Sunlight/Graveyard," "Deceiver," the coda of "Truth Is Whatever You Say") sound more like band exploring new sounds or trying new structures. Do you ever find yourself writing songs and thinking, "No, this doesn't sound like a Double Grave song" or do you just write what strikes you and run it through the DG ringer?
JW: I try to finish most songs I start writing, but, easier said than done. I can take a long time to feel right about a song. There have been some songs that I've written and we've worked out and played together for a while and then abandoned, mostly because they didn't feel like a step forward, they didn't feel like growth. Maybe once we're actually playing it together it lacks a certain energy or it feels too familiar already, or like we're trying too hard at something and missing the mark, and so we decide to spend our time on something else.
I tend to think of writing in batches, anticipating releases, so we'll often think of songs in relation to each other and hold them up to a similar critique stylistically. Empty Hands was fast and loud, New Year's Daydream was moody and darker, for example.
FB: How did this Kitty Cat Klub residency come about? Was it something the band sought out or was it an idea presented to you?
JW: We asked the Kitty Cat Klub if we could do it and they said yes. That venue was like our first home. When we started a few years ago they let us play there so often, it's where we found ourselves in a way, so we thought it'd be fun to celebrate there again. This is actually our third release event there now that I think about it.
FB: This residency is a bit atypical in that the band has constructed a tour of the Midwest around the first couple of residency dates. How did that come about? Do you find think the structure of powering through a quick tour, spending a day or two back home, and hitting the road again to be ideal or would you kind of prefer to go into "tour more" and just become road warriors for month?
JW: The tour on top of the residency just kind of happened. We planned the residency, and knew we wanted to tour on the new release too. We realized that June and July would be harder months to tour because of personal schedules, and at the same time our label mates Tundrastomper wanted to come out this way in May and play together, so we just went for it!
Quick tours are fun and pretty easy in that you know you'll be home soon and you're not that far away should anything go wrong. Also for this tour we're mostly going places we've been a few times and we get to see a lot of friends which is obviously super fun. That said, short runs mostly just whet my appetite for longer tours, personally.
FB: Bluntly, do you enjoy being out on the road? It seems that some bands romanticize the road life while others treat it as an exercise in endurance (both mentally & physically).
JW: Between the three of us the feelings on touring vary but generally we all enjoy it. I for one really like to tour. I never traveled much before we started touring, so that's fun, and it also shrinks your world in a way I love. You only have a few things to worry about (barring unforeseen setbacks which are bound to happen) and one of them is playing music, and seeing how music lives in other places, and connecting with cool people.
I also feel really fortunate regarding our dynamic. We're best friends, truly. We all care about each other and understand each other's personalities and needs without much effort or any drama, and I feel like that makes a big difference, it allows things to get easier and easier rather than more strenuous.
FB: How was the lineup for the residency chosen? Was the band able to curate it 100%?
JW: We joyfully hand picked every last act.
FB: Was there anybody you hoped would be able to play but just couldn't make it work?
JW: Sure, booking is rarely very simple. Every performer on the bill is fantastic though, and pretty much everyone is a friend as well, so, it's gonna be great.
JW: Sure, booking is rarely very simple. Every performer on the bill is fantastic though, and pretty much everyone is a friend as well, so, it's gonna be great.
FB: Lastly, and this is kind of a big, open-ended question: We've had great venues close lately (The Triple Rock, Reverie) and new venues step up (Mortimer's, Eagles Club) to fill the void. There's still a tremendous amount of great music coming from Minneapolis & St. Paul with new band popping up all the time and bands like Double Grave, Straya, The Florists, Royal Brat really growing into their sound, but it seems like things are in a state of flux right now. Broadly, what's your take on the indie rock scene in the Twin Cities?
JW: That's a wild question. I think the TC scene is always in flux really. It's very different now from when I first moved here to start playing. But I think music is just always changing the way it fits into the world, and at an increasingly rapid rate. Things do seem somewhat amorphous here right now, but maybe that's just my vantage point because places we used to play and bands we used to play with are gone, but, like you said there's new stuff happening all the time! We're still playing new places and meeting new people all the time.
The Twin Cities sometimes feels like an overgrown garden of music to me. There is so much going on right now, and everyone is just so active, it's like the city isn't big enough for it all. Or we don't know what to do with it. Pretty much every time I go to a local show I'm just floored by how great my peers' music it, I'll go weeks just listening to friends' music. So, despite things always changing, I don't feel like the music scene here is in any kind of danger, if anything it has yet to explode.
FB: Thanks for chatting with me, Jeremy.
Double Grave Kitty Cat Klub Residency:
5/1 - w/Tact & Products
5/8 - w/Tundrastomper & Straya
5/15 - w/Wetter & The Cult Of Lip
5/22 - w/Halftramp & The Florists
5/29 - w/Bathtub Cig & Hemma
Empty Hands is out now:
Cassette via Forged Artifacts
7" via Sad Cactus
Digitally via Bandcamp
I can be found on this big terrible internet on Twitter (@TCDroogsma). Previous episodes of Flatbasset Radio are archived on my Mixcloud page. Stop by Flatbasset Radio's Facebook Page & give it a "Like" if you have the time.
