Review Fix chats with Chris Geisler and Shelley Miller who discuss their debut album, origin, creative process and goals for the future.
About Soft Ledges:
Soft Ledges is an indie rock/noise folk band from Chicago, IL. Formed in 2015, they (Shelley Miller and Chris Geisler) make dark, angular, delicate music about struggle and survival. A recommended listen for fans of Vic Chesnutt, PJ Harvey and Low. At once confessional and confrontational, their songs stare down darkness until it coughs up hope. Their self-titled debut album (self-released) comes out November 18 on vinyl, cd and digital.
Review Fix: How did the band get together?
Chris Geisler: Shelley and I met in 2012 through a mutual friend/musician, Christopher Elam. Chris and I were playing together in a glam rock band at the time and I had seen him play with Shelley during that time. He came to me and the drummer and asked if we’d want to join up with him to back Shelley up, to give it a stronger more rock sound that she was wanting. From that we started Shelley Miller and the BCC, and over the next year or so we recorded an EP and played shows all over Chicago. After numerous drummer changes and the exit of Chris from the mix, Shelley and I found the two of us spending many a night together working on new ideas, playing with new pedals and sounds, and watching a lot of YouTube videos til the hours of the night/morning. From that, we came to the realization that we knew what we wanted to do, and felt that we were capable of doing it ourselves. We worked out a good album’s worth of songs and decided we’d go into the studio and see what we could do, just the two of us, which became Soft Ledges.
Shelley Miller: Playing with Geisler was supposed to be a one-off thing for a big show I had as a solo artist. I thought he was too cool for school – we come from very different musical backgrounds – but then we realized that we’re drawn to the same kinds of gorgeously imperfect music, and that we have a mutual sense of adventurousness that we hadn’t necessarily had a chance to pursue in past projects.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Geisler: When we started to work on what would become Soft Ledges, Shelley would come to the rehearsal space in my house with songs she had sitting around.  We experimented a lot, especially with different pedals, different percussive ideas, and different ways of playing our instruments. We’d find ourselves elaborating on ideas and getting a very dark atmospheric sound that we’d later incorporate into some of the songs. Everything we would work on we would do our best to try and get the sound we were searching for, but also make it so that we could recreate it live.
Review Fix: What’s your standout song on the new album? How was it written?
Geisler: It depends on what is meant by “standout.”  I guess what comes to mind most would be “Highlight Reel.” It’s a song that I feel like we really approached differently the other songs on the album. Going back to the idea of atmosphere, we really branched out into that realm on this track. The song was held together with a solid, haunting guitar riff and we just went from there with layering guitars and bowing bass. What makes it standout, I’d say, is that as much as we worked with this song, a good chunk was developed in the studio. We tried out different ways of layering guitars and the percussive side of things was largely done in the studio. Shelley worked out a lot of minimalist arrangements playing various kitchen utensils and bowing bells and other random items, while I helped fill the climax of the song with large tom hits and swells.  Together it really captured the  kind of eerie sound we wanted and only helped to exemplify the intensity of Shelley belting out “This is Love” only to fall back into a calm sense that everything will be okay after the storm passes. Putting this together and hearing the result still makes my skin crawl in the best way possible.
Miller: For me, it’s Deer Fly Blues. There’s an intensity to the storytelling and the playing – it’s a song about living through something that’s supposed to kill you and doesn’t, but changes your life in a massive way. It’s a song about learning to be brave, and learning how to be present because the past has been ripped up…and that’s how I felt playing it. I was in completely over my head as a guitarist and drummer in the best possible way. There’s so much improvising, and so much gutting it out in how we played that–it’s a fingerpicked ballad that turns into a three and a half minute noise jam. This was the song where I feel like we really found our voice as a band.
Review Fix: What are your goals for 2017?
Miller: We’re working on a video for one of our songs that should be out in early 2017. We’d like to tour the Midwest next spring, start working on some new songs, continue to build our fanbase in and around Chicago, and hopefully continue to make music that has an impact and connects with people. We’d also like to improvise more – maybe do some sets of all instrumental noise – and to collaborate with other like-minded artists.
Review Fix: What makes this a special album?
Geisler: For me it’s that this  was something of a test. When I first started playing with Shelley, it was something a bit out of my norm. I was used to playing with mostly punk rock bands and it was a change of pace for me. There was a bit of a learning curve. It was something that I was interested in doing but maybe not the most well versed in. On top of all of that this, recording brought in a new test of not only my abilities but I think Shelley’s as well. We’re both competent  in playing guitar, bass, drums, etc., and this was really something we felt we could do, but still were unsure what would happen. Neither of us had every approached a record this way before and it was quite amazing to not only see what we had wanted to do come to life, but that it came together in such a way that after only a few weeks of recording we could hear what we heard in our heads collectively through a stereo and knew that it was us.
Miller: The fact that it exists. We had this crazy notion that we could write and play all the parts on this album, and then we did it. It forced both of us to grow and stretch a lot as artists and as people, and I think both we and the album are stronger for it.
But beyond that, it’s an honest album that says honest things honestly. It’s pretty unflinching, both in staring down things like loss and abuse, and in offering up the possibility that there is a pretty massive amount of hope out there, no matter how f-ed up things seem.
Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?
Miller: We want people to think, and feel. These songs are rooted in struggle, and in hope. I hope that they can find some people they speak to and be of service.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Miller: Getting the word out about this album, then working on a video, then holing up in our practice space again to dig deeper into sounds and textures and start writing more new music.
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