U&U INTERVIEW :: SIIINES
Los Angeles-based SIIINES just wants their listeners to groove and be in the moment - a sentiment that is definitely clear on the band's latest release, an EP called Fukushimarama!. Full to the brim with electro dance beats, snarky humor and an "in-your-face" punk attitude, Fukushimarama! is sure to delight both existing fans and newcomers to SIIINES' electro-rock mix. We recently sat down with member Morgan Gies to chat about the new EP, the band's unique sense of humor, and their dream tour - on Mars, of course.
Tell me a little about yourself – where you’re from, what your favorite high school hangout was, and the first album you ever owned.
I was raised in a city called St. Albert just north of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It’s cold… very cold. My favourite high school hangout was probably music class. I’d skip other classes and sit in with the jazz kids or concert band. I think the first album I ever owned was either Guns N Roses’ Appetite For Destruction or Weird Al Yankovic.
Your “info” section on Facebook (the center of all accurate knowledge) cites Motely Crue, David Guetta, Nirvana and Deadmau5 as huge influences on your work. How do you incorporate all these different sounds? What ideas do you take from each group?
Ha! It’s impossible to articulate every influence on an idea but those bands are a means of better articulating feelings or sounds from seemingly juxtaposed genres - not just those acts specifically. There are a host of acts we love from both the rock and EDM sides of the fence in addition to the ones already mentioned. The biggest thing we wanted to take from the rock side was a sense of aggression and that sort of ‘I don’t give a fuck’ punk rock attitude. From the Deadmau5, David Guetta side of the fence, we wanted to pull new and interesting sounds with grooves that make people want to move and enjoy the moment… something that’s missing from the all-too-serious rock world these days.
Tell me about your EP, Fukushimarama!, that’s set to drop on February 11, 2014.
Fukushimarama! musically is a continuation of the exploration of this marriage of genres. We’re pushing ourselves to surprise each other with form and arrangements. Additionally, we enlisted the help of our friend Ari Rhodes who after we had written, recorded and produced a track would take it and essentially remix the song, sometimes in a totally unexpected way. It was like the triple distillation process of fine vodka! Lyrically, we wanted to explore some wider cultural themes related to the way that we distract ourselves from the things that really matter and effect us whether that’s lust, drugs, money, celebrity or music.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a little sneak peak of the EP and I’ve noticed that as lyricists, you guys definitely have a sense of humor. Is this an important part of your music?
I think so, but not in a really goofy, Blink-182, “fuck your grandma” kind of way. It’s more subversive and sarcastic, I think. If you open your eyes and look at the world around you, you can’t help but laugh. TMZ, Krokodile, fast food culture, etc. It’s a fucking joke and no one acknowledges it. They just keep the party going like Jager’s never gonna run out.
Because every artist and band always has a unique approach, I’m always interested in how musicians handle songwriting. What’s your songwriting process like?
I think the worst thing you can do when creating is have yourself stuck in a process. I feel as though when you walk to the same places, you see the same things. You become predictable, and predictable is boring. In that vein we’re trying to create in as many different ways as possible, it might be a chord on a guitar or the sound a plug-in or guitar pedal makes, a lyric, a feeling or just chopping up a vocal and playing with it for a couple hours. There really is no one way for us. The best example would be Travis. Historically Travis hasn’t been involved musically as much as lyrically and melodically but for this EP, there are a couple tracks (whelps, inhuman nature) that began with ideas that he created on his own, learning about electronic production and just musical ideas in general. That sort of unrestricted creation makes exciting things; that no one else might have come up with.
What do you hope your listeners get out of your music?
We want them to shake and convulse, and after they’ve worn themselves out, hopefully we’ve given them a reason to question their world and what it means to be alive.
If you could create your own dream tour –headlining, of course, SIIINES – what other artists would you add to the bill? Where would you play?
Blonde, Fleetwood Mac and Kraftwork. We’d play on Mars. At a taco shop. …you did say this was a dream, right?
Lastly, where do you see yourselves in five years?
Hopefully we’re still making art that excites us and questions standards and ideals… and eating tacos. Fresh, authentic Martian tacos.
- Tori Mier