INTERVIEW/QUESTIONS: Lydia Sprague ||| PHOTO: Alex Disenhof
We sat down with Pepper Rabbit bandmates Xander Singh and Luc Laurent at this year’s Sasquatch music festival in George, Washington. They talked about their new record, Red Velvet Snow Ball, and how it differs from previous endeavors. They, also, tell us what the recording process is like, how they’ve developed their sound and what they like to do when they find that rare bit of down time.
This interview was conducted on the afternoon May 28th, day two of Sasquatch.
LYDIA SPRAGUE: Your music is so encompassing, how do you get such a big sound with just two members?
XANDER SINGH: Basically, we start writing a song in basic chord structure and after we’ve got that we just kind of throw everything we can at it and just try everything. We end up just keeping the parts that we like, and that’s how we end up having a lot of instruments on the records, just through constantly layering things and overdubbing.
LUC LAURENT: Yeah, kind of throwing in the kitchen sink and then fixing it up afterwards to make it pretty
LS: So a lot of recording and layering tracks.
LL: Yeah, and editing and it’s almost like writing a a rough draft, but using too many words and making everything really colorful and then revising it and making it more to the point.
LS: Do you guys play all the instruments yourselves?
LL: Yes.
LS: Kanine’s site mentions that your upcoming album, Red Velvet Snowball, was recorded in a much different setting than the first. Can you kind of elaborate how the new album is going to be different?
XS: Well, we went to a proper recording studio this time. Whereas, the first record was recorded a lot at my house and at friends’ houses and stuff. So we wanted a much cleaner and a little more produced sound for the next record, which is hard to get in a garage or a living room. I don’t know too much about recording techniques, but we wanted it to sound a lot more professionally done.
LL: Yeah, we basically did demos at home and spent from March until June of last year just writing the songs and kind of figuring out what we wanted to do in the studio. And last August we went to Bear Creek, which is outside of Seattle, it’s in Woodinville, and we spent a week and a half there recording the stuff and then we went back in December and January mixing with the producer. We finished the record in March.
LS: Is the style different, or is the sound different from the previous record?
XS: Yeah, the style is a bit different it’s a lot more coherent than the first record it’s a bit more based on just traditional pop music and it’s not as huge and washey sounding as the first one. It sounds a lot more cleaner
LL: It’s more upbeat... kind of just more pop songs versus ballads…
LS: Do you recruit friends or other musicians or friends to record with you?
XS: Not really in the studio, but our friend Jonathan plays bass and keyboards for the live show. But in the recording and the writing process we like to keep it just ourselves
LS: Going off of that, how do you translate what you do on record to your live shows?
LL: Well, we have our friend Jonathan help fill us out, and then I think we just kind of stick to our duties in a way. I’m only really playing drums and then adding some samples and background vocals. Xander mostly sticks to keyboards and guitars and trying to focus on his vocals. And then our friend Jonathan playing bass and some keyboard stuff.
It’s like, not only can we not bring all the instruments that we record with with us, but we try to, like, I wouldn’t say simplify it… not in a way of dumbing it down, but just organizing it in a more manageable way. In recording you have a lot of freedom, and we love that, but playing live we have to almost respect the boundaries of playing live as a three piece. Some bands are really lucky and have like 12 members, and can do all the stuff that they do on the record but right now it’s just the three of us.
LS: Do you ever use pre-recorded sounds?
LL: We do some sampling, but it’s not to a time based.. It’s not like we’re playing along with it, it’s just kind of to add some textures to it.
LS: Who are you listening to right now?
XS: I’ve been listening to the latest Gorillas album pretty much every day for the past month or so, a lot of Jaime Lidell. And lots of James Blake, I really like James Blake. I’m a big fan of his.
LL: I’ve actually been listening to Microphones, which is a band I used to listen to a lot when I was in high school. They’re from Olympia, Washington… or something. On K records. I just kind of revisited them recently. My friend Joel that I grew up with in New Hampshire and I were talking about them and I decided to start listening to them again. It’s really strange music, but it holds a place in my heart.
LS: Do you find that consuming music from other artists, and other types of art, affects the art you produce?
XS: Yeah, definitely, I think it kind of has to. If you hear a song you really like, there’s obviously something that originally grabs your attention whether it be a keyboard sound or a guitar tone. I think you always try to take a little bit from everything and put together your own type of sound and I think that’s why, I feel like we don’t sound too much like a lot of other bands is because we’re constantly pulling a lot of little things from everything that I like and you listen to such a wide range of music, you know, you come up with something completely unique and completely on your own because you’ve pulled so many things from so many different people.
LL: Yeah, I would say for me I’m a music lover as well as a musician, so listening to music at times is just to calm me down so a lot of times I don’t get inspirations or influences from listening to music. A lot of times it’s just because I love it, but every now and again something will pop out and I’ll be like, "Oh man, I want to do that or experiment with this." And just evolve, as we’re maturing as musicians we’re also trying to evolve our sound as individuals.
LS: I’ve asked this question of other bands, and I’ve gotten the response that when they make music all the time, sometimes they want to just go home and sit in silence and not be exposed to music.
XS: <Laughing> Yes, especially driving in a van when you’re on tour. Whenever I drive I don’t listen to music at all, I prefer podcasts or radio shows. Definitely when you’re around music all the time you have to find ways to distance yourself from it, or your ears get very tired. Especially when we’re at home there’s lots of television, lots of movies. We don’t really sit down and just listen to music very often.
LL: Yeah, we try to get away from it. It kind of refreshes you in a way. I find that a lot of times too, we’re always around people when we’re on tours and I’ll find these little tiny moments when I’m like, "Oh my God, I’m all to myself right now." And I’ll just be listening to my music and singing along really loudly. When you’re constantly around people it’s nice to get away.
+ Check out Groovemine's review of Pepper Rabbit's last album, Beaurgard
