Review Fix chats with United Shapes singer/multi-instrumentalist Joseph Devens, who discusses the origin of the band and their new single, Fractalvision, and more.
Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?
Joseph Devens: We had this giant 1940s upright piano in my house when I was a kid. (I wondered if I only thought it was giant because I was little at the time, but I saw it again recently as an adult and it is, in fact, the size of a Nissan Armada.) I couldn’t avoid it. I started teaching myself pieces of music that I heard on the television. The first thing I ever taught myself to play was the theme song from Murder, She Wrote. I love that song. Soon I started writing songs of my own. The first song I wrote was called “Animal Farm.” It was about the Orwell novel of the same name because we were reading that book in school. The lyrics were, “Animal Farm / Animal Farm / What if it’s just an animal farm? / What if it’s not about communism?” I played it so much that my friends asked me to stop.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Devens: First, I sit at the piano and start banging my hands down on the keys. I usually write the music first, then the lyrics. When something catches my ear, I’ll focus on that and then try to take it somewhere unexpected. I get very bored with music that all sounds the same. I try to surprise myself when I write music. If I can entertain myself, then I feel like I’ll be able to entertain other people. Then, when I have some good music going, I come up with a title. The title is essential. I can’t write lyrics without a title first. The title is usually a catchy phrase that’s been bopping around in my head. An abstract concept. The name of a person. Anything, really. Then I let the title inform the lyrics.
Review Fix: What inspires you?
Devens: Caffeine and nicotine.
Review Fix: What does music mean to you?
Devens: It means I’m free to do whatever I like. I see it as a way to control other people’s emotions, if only for a short while. And sometimes as a way to control my own emotions. Again, for a short while. It’s an emotional outlet. It has a beginning and an end. The beginning is a nebulous blob cloud of potential, and the end is a specific emotion. But the end can change with time. I like to play with it. It’s exciting and fuzzy and full of possibility. It’s a rodeo of ideas. Some of the ideas will get caught in the lasso, some will escape. Some will turn into other ideas. It’s a playground and a sandbox. It can only be described using metaphor because in reality it has no form.
Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?
Devens: People who have heard our music usually compare it to They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, and Beck. I think the one thing that all of us have in common is a passion for surprise. If I’m allowed to, I would compare our aesthetic to the Beatles, in that we enjoy being silly and serious at the same time, musically and lyrically. I think some people just hear our silly stuff and decide that that’s all we are. It’s not.
Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?
Devens: We’ve never performed live! But we plan to. The problem is, once I write and record a song, it disappears from my brain. My brain is a musical Snapchat. I can’t remember how to play any of my own songs. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to play and sing at the same time. I’ve tried, I’ve practiced, it is simply not something I can do. I know my limits. I imagine a live show going something like “somebody else” playing my keyboard parts while I sing, Drew plays guitar, and more “other people” play bass and drums. Obviously, we’re going to have to hire a “band.”
Review Fix: What inspired your latest single, “Fractalvision”?
Devens: Oh boy… well, my doctor prescribed me a stimulant and an antipsychotic. There was a mixup at the pharmacy and I only got the stimulant. I was taking the wrong cocktail of pills for several months. During that time, I experienced drug side effects which I began calling “Fractalvision”. The side effects were characterized by a hyperactive brain, serious delusions of grandeur, and a mild, perpetual psychosis. I saw the universe through the jigsaw logic of self-perpetuating fractals. I believed I was a genius. My brain was spinning faster than I had time to write all my ideas down. I composed the meaning of life in a single tweet. Fractalvision was having the creative genius to solve any problem in the world, but the impotence to do so because my brain was on fire. When my pills got fixed, I wrote the song. “Your brain gets bigger but your head gets smaller” is the lyric which best described my situation. I wrote some of the lyrics as palindromes to reflect the cyclical nature of fractals. It was a real mess, but it produced a pretty fun song. (It also inspired the song “Masterpiece”, also on Compound Shapes, which is about delusions of grandeur.)
Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2020?
Devens: DON’T DIE.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Devens: More songs, of course! We’ve already got a good start on our next album. The songs are all written in our heads, and six of them have been turned into nearly-finished demos. Our next album is a return to writing about anything and everything. It is not a concept album like Compound Shapes. It is going to be called Next Week. Also, Drew has been busy building a classical nylon-string guitar by hand from scratch. It’s taken him almost a year. He just finished, actually. It sounds like pure gravy. He’s got a natural skill for building guitars. He built the strat he played on Compound Shapes.
Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?
Devens: A word to the younger folks: If you like music, write music. It’s easy. If you can hear it in your head, you can make it happen. Hearing it is the first and most important step. Listen to as much music as possible. Even stuff you don’t like. Feel it. Dance. Pick up any instrument and start learning it. It’s fun. Sleep in your clothes. Never drink glass. Learn your way around the house with your eyes closed. Talk to a dog. Never stop. And remember, French toast can be used as sandwich bread.
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