Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. This week, Joe spoke with Jolie Lindholm of The Darling Fire to discuss their upcoming record, genre blending and Furnace Fest.
Joe: What genre do you consider yourself?
Jolie: It’s so hard to say, it’s been interesting to see what other people think. It’s always hard for me to categorise our band. I know a lot of people are saying shoegaze elements in there, some post-hardcore and even some metal. All of those are pretty accurate influences and I would say it’s a combination of that.
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Joe: How has it been blending all the different influences?
Jolie: It’s interesting, we all have similar tastes in the band but we listen to an array of things. Our backgrounds are similar but a little bit different in ways, so you can hear the metal influences that comes from Mike our guitarist. Even from Steve our drummer who adds the metal or hardcore element. Then my vocal has some of those elements, which has a pop sensibility I try to tone down a bit. That comes through and adds a strange thing to it. It’s interesting to bring all these things together and what comes out, which is why it’s hard to categorise us for me.
Joe: Are there any bands or sounds that you would say you draw from?
Jolie: It’s hard to say but there are some influences from Deftones and Quicksand. We don’t really try to emulate anyone and if we do try it never works. We basically listen to all different things, so there’s no specific band we pull from to get our sound. We do listen to a lot of Deftones so you can probably hear that.
Joe: What’s the US shoegaze scene like?
Jolie: It’s been hard to pair us with anyone specifically as the scene is all over the place. It’s hard for me to say who is specifically who are shoegaze but there’s bands like nothing and bands like that. There’s some of that scene but it’s so spread out, there’s no specific scene.
Joe: How are you feeling heading into furnace fest?
Jolie: Furnace Fest is in a couple of weeks and everyone comes together for this giant party. There’s shoegaze, hardcore, metal and emo and all that comes together in one place. It’s cool because that’s what we used to have when I was younger, we had shows that would be different and we would come together to play a show. Now it seems more like now they will come to a show to see a band and they may not be interested enough to stay and check out a new band. With Furnace Fest, everyone is just really excited to be there and experience the whole thing and see bands that have been around for a long time or some newer.
Joe: Why do you think there is the crossover between the two genres?
Jolie: I don’t know, it’s weird. I can listen to all sorts of music with a few exceptions, with shoegaze it’s still heavy it can still go. There are some people who listen to metal and only like hardcore. We didn’t intentionally blend, that’s just how it came out. I guess that’s what we can do and some people are picky about what they like. The reason why people can listen to both is because it’s still in that heavy region, that it’s heavy and atmospheric which makes them open to both.
Joe: How did you work the different sounds into the record in the context sonically and flow?
Jolie: I feel like my husband has told me it’s because of my voices and it carries it through. He will write something heavy and have something in mind based on a lot of male vocals he will listen to. Then I will write something over and he will be like “that’s not what I pictured at all”, it will just work out that way. With the vocal it can carry over both aspects of the song and bring it together. I don’t do any screamy vocals so it can still be cohesive as it’s not two different vocals over two different parts. It’s one thing over the entire song so that’s how it blends together.
Joe: What was the writing process of Distortions?
Jolie: That’s always been my husband and I, he will write a song or start a part or we will come together and write a second. He will then bring in our second guitarist he will write some leads over the songs. Then we will bring it to the guys and see what they think, we record it at home so we know all the bits and pieces we want to bring into the studio. That’s how it was with the record, with Steve adding his drums and the bassist adding in his part. That’s how we’ve been doing it since the beginning. We haven’t yet got to together and jammed and written a song together. We write it separately but it will still be influences when the drummer or the bass player gets in there. Sometimes we still strip away or add something that we did, it’s still collaborative.
Joe: Have there been any developments going from Dark Celebrations to Distortions?
Jolie: We just kept writing in this direction that was heavier and darker, with thicker guitars and we add some keys. The first album was the first time we had written and we kept writing in that direction. It kept developing and on some of the earlier songs you will be able to tell, “Downer” was one of the earlier songs we wrote and that one is the oddball. That one was the transition between the two albums. It kept getting more intricate and we then sequenced them the way they are as they were written in a certain order. We kept going and kept layering and learning the sound we wanted to bring.
Joe: Would “Legless” element such as harsher vocals be further explored in future records?
Jolie: That song is an expression piece, it’s a crazy thing and at the end it’s letting go. It’s a strange song but it’s one of my favourites personally because it’s so interesting. We definitely experimented on that and at first I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. When we brought it to the guys they thought it was cool so we decided to work with it and we kept it on the album. It’s definitely the most experimental on the album.
Joe: Why do you think shoegaze has become more popular?
Jolie: I noticed a lot of things have been remerging lately. If we’re talking about the last couple of years I think we know why. Pent up creativity that had to burst, so a lot of people have decided to be creative with what they were doing like we did. We had a lot more time to really focus on what we wanted to make. It seems like there’s so much interesting music out there, shoegaze being one of them, that’s really emotional and there’s so much you can do with it. You could just do verse, chorus, verse and be done with it, and with shoegaze there’s so much you can do with it.
Joe: Are there any bands you’re aware of that are doing interesting work?
Jolie: There are so many bands that I love. A lot of bands I loved that I loved a long time are releasing new material, it’s hard to say what recently as I’ve listened to so much over the years. So it’s hard to say specific bands but I did love the new Deftones record and the new Humm record. There’s so much cool music coming out right now and to narrow it out.
Caven went back and did heavy stuff again which for a long time they weren’t doing and their first album was one of my favourites when they came out and I was waiting a long time for them to come out with something heavy again. Quicksand their recent stuff is really cool too. There’s a lot more interesting stuff coming out because people are bored and what they’re capable of.
Many thanks to Jolie for sitting down and asking our questions, you can find our review of Distortions here.