Violet
demos iii, post 10
The second song we ever wrote
In our earliest iteration we were Jake on guitar, Nathan on drums, and me on bass. Whistler was in the band, but being that we were in high school and he lived on the other side of town, it was a rare occurrence that he would drive out for the nebulous jam. At the time, we had the idea for the band but we didn’t quite have the initiative to do anything about it. We were lying in wait. In our first foray into music together, we wrote a handful of songs quickly. Violet just so happened to be the second one we put together. Jake had come in with the idea for the chords. Some bundle of notes that felt novel and uneasy. We quickly put together an arrangement to give those chords a proper structure. Nathan added riffs as he usually does. It was almost an exercise, back in those days, to adorn the structure with as many little details as we could. Choreographed fills, synchronized lines. In lieu of what has become the norm today, writing a song on a DAW, having endless instruments, tracks, and samples, we would instead be confronted with our limitations. Just two guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. How do we make those five elements new each time? How have any artists managed to etch out their own lane when so many have used the same tools before? Our answer was adding traits that were pleasing to us. Elements that the four of us had a penchant for. But no matter what happened at the beginning of the song, the end had to hit hard. If there was an opportunity to find a half-time drop, we took it. It was predicated on the house show mentality. Just make each song worthy of sticking around until the end.
It’s the winter of 2014-15, and it’s our second time at the Pachyderm. We have just purchased an extremely desirable, yet competitively priced Ford passenger van, and we have some songs to track before we hit the road. We arrive with more esteem than last time. Having sold out one of the smallest venues in town, we put a badge of honor on our own chest and felt bigger for it. We had three days to record four songs. An eternity to us then, but a paltry amount of time to our eyes now. How can anything get done in three days? We set out to record Close to Gold, Dollar Bill, and Violet, and re-record South. We had, for one reason or another, abandoned our first pass of South that we had tracked on our first visit to the studio.
Fast forward to 6 months later we are in the U.K. We have concluded our first U.S. tour and we get an offer to open for Modest Mouse. We trade places playing first and second on the bill with Elle King and her band. She’s often lewd and endearing, referring to us exclusively as “a bunch of pussies”. We wrap up our run of shows with them, and go to shoot a music video for Violet. Leagues beyond any of our previous music video experiences, we actually get a dressing room this time. There’s a director, a set, a stylist. We feel like the prettiest girls in the room. Off the record, we’ve hated every music video we’ve ever done. But this one was the best we had done yet. Also off the record we like the U.K. very little. Everything was built before the invention of insulation and central air, so you’re permanently a type of cold that is both damp and penetrating. Sure, you might say, but it never really gets below 45f. This is, in my opinion the coldest temperature. Colder than every temperature below it. Because it deceives you. Oh maybe a light jacket will do. No. I will not do. It never does. You prance around in a windbreaker, shivering to death both in and outside of buildings. Thankfully the music video wrapped up before we died of hypothermia and it turned out exceptionally well. And what’s better is that the YouTube gods decided to put this music video into the algorithm and boost its viewership well past what It would have received on its own.
We still play this song often. It’s our oldest show dog that can still come out and do its trick. With few signs of aging we think this one will stick with us for a while longer. Tune in next week to see how the South EP wraps up and you can finally learn what the Halocline means.