Interview: Southtowne Lanes
Southtowne Lanes released the killer ‘Give Up The Ghost’ recently and we just had to get the lowdown on one of the most interesting and thematically dense albums of the year so far.
Formed by four high-school friends (James Giles, Matt DeBellis, Matt Kupka and Tyler Giard) who reconnected a couple of years after graduation, and named after their local bowling alley in Eugene, Oregon, which kicked them out for smuggling in beer, Southtowne Lanes have delivered a genuine one-off with ‘Give Up The Ghost.’ Drawing in emo, screamo, indie and rock it’s an album that warrants and rewards repeated listens. To paraphrase The Hold Steady, “Southtowne Lanes’ll blow you away…”
AH: What’s the concept behind ‘Give Up The Ghost’? How/why did you hit on that as a concept?
Matt Kupka: ‘Give Up the Ghost’ is not a concept record – at least not in the traditional sense, however it does have a setting. The album takes place on a walk, most likely at night, with the narrator walking alone. Doesn’t matter where they’re going or where they came from, what matters is that they are going. Along this walk the narrator recalls past people and situations that imply a variety of emotions, and the narrator questions whether or not these apparitions are helping, confusing, or holding the narrator back.
I feel like the concept is fairly common amongst younger songwriters, as a lot of us are, for the first time, dealing with the concept of moving on and away from what we know. There are a lot of new experiences happening, and those new experiences force us to compare with the older experiences. We, or at least I, tend to romanticize and eulogize these concepts in songs. My questions were not why this was happening, but rather what effect it was having on us.
AH: How do you approach songwriting? ‘Give Up The Ghost’ is hugely complicated with many different parts so is it a laboured, trial and error process or do you approach it with a clear vision?
Matt: I feel like we come at it in a pretty traditional sense. We just put in A LOT of effort into really trying to let the song go where it needs to go. Usually someone has a skeleton for a song, they’ll post it in our private group online, then we come to practice and work.
In a more direct response to your question, I’d say we definitely come at more with a clear vision. That’s why we waited three years to even start a full=length record. We wanted to build the trust and solidarity or our relationship as a band and individual songwriters before embarking on something that could turn out to be inconsistent. We all wanted to be on the same page before writing the book.
romaincrisis
amandla
gamechangershow
izzy806
gracieabrams
