Review Fix chats with Places Erupt’s Lee Piazza who discusses the band’s debut single “Mayday,†as well as their creative process and goals for the future.
For More on the Band, Click Here.Â
Review Fix: What was your invitation to music like?
Lee Piazza: Dancing around in my basement and bedroom to an Ace of Base cassette. Finding my sister’s Pharcyde LabCabinCalifornia CD and realizing that there aren’t any bad genres of music, just good and bad bands. And seeing Radiohead in a small concert hall during their OK Computer tour in ‘97 was pivotal, as was seeing Saul Williams perform in a bar when I was 16 or so. It was around then that I knew I wanted to seriously pursue music.
Review Fix: How would you describe your sound?
Piazza: Our music is a dichotomy of melancholic calm and angry dissonance. We’ve definitely found a sound that is wholly ours. We always have trouble comparing ourselves to other bands. But our music is still accessible. We take advantage of the instruments that we have, especially strings, making them pretty one moment and jarring the next.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Piazza: In a word, healthy. We never have ego faceoffs when creating new songs. It’s always a matter of “What is the song missing? What does the song still need?†It’s never a matter of, “Is my part prominent enough?â€
The process typically starts with a single lick from Greg, our guitarist. Sometimes it will start with a vocal hook. And everything stems from there. The vocals are sounded out phonetically and the lyrics are added afterwards.
Review Fix: Who influences you musically?
Piazza: The albums we play in our touring van while on the road give an indication of how wide-ranging our influences are: from St. Vincent to PJ Harvey to Mars Volta to Modest Mouse to My Morning Jacket to Nick Cave to Owen Pallett to Nicolas Jaar to Man Man to Jay-Z. The funny thing is we sound entirely different from all of those bands.
Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of the year?
Piazza: We want to get as many people as possible to hear this record. This is the first major work we’ve created and we want it to make a mark. We’re making a music video in the fall, touring some more and creating more material. We want to get to a point where we can tour internationally.
Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?
Piazza: “Mayday†is the first single. We like it because it may be the most balanced of all the songs on the record. Greg was strolling around guitar-in-hand while we were at a cabin in between shows on the road. I hummed the vocals phonetically, matched a few words to the sounds and suddenly knew what the song was about.
It’s about the difficulty of shaking things off and the struggle to compartmentalize:
Puncturing the fog and you’re unable
Blowtorch to the fog and you’re unable
Gnashing at the fog and you’re unable
To defy the sky’s many whims
So saunter through it as it floats
“Umbral, Penumbral Showdown†refers to the struggle to remain positive. Not to get too technical but if something is umbral, all the light is completely cut off. If it’s penumbral, some light still gets through.
I was also experiencing stress-induced heart palpitations at the time as well and had to wear a monitor for a few days, thus the lines:
Checking on the pulse
Beat reporter
Plastic tentacles
Reaching in
Review Fix: Bottom line, why should someone listen to your work?
Piazza: Without trying to boast, we don’t sound like anyone else. Our performances tend to silence people. Our songs can be sombre and pretty at some moments then uplifting and celebratory at others. The lyrics are rich and cover a wide range of topics (everything from relationship changes to megalomania to mob mentality is covered on this album). Our stringed instruments will float above the songs then cut right into them, blasted through different pedals. So we feel there’s lots of dynamism and richness in our music.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Piazza: We’re thinking we’ll take Manhattan, then Berlin. And possibly Lima, if we have time.
Leave a Reply