October 1st 2015 at Gramercy Theater on the “Run Wild Tour”
SBN: So to start, could you state your name and role in the band?
Justin Camacho: My name is Justin and I play guitar.
Matt Keller: My name is Matt and I play keys.
Leighton Antelman: I’m Layton and I sing and play guitar.
SBN: So the obligatory tour question, how has touring been so far?
JC: Good.
MK: Fantastic.
JC: We’ve been out for two weeks and we have about three and a half more to go. I think this is the thirteenth show. First one in New York, shows have been going great and people have showing up, so can’t really complain about that you know?
SBN: For sure. So you guys just dropped an album, Run Wild.
JC: Thirteen days ago.
MK: Tomorrow will be two weeks.
SBN: So how are you feeling about the release?
MK: Really excited.
SBN: I noticed that this album is quite different from your previous releases, such as Devil. I also recall in one of the interviews that you guys did that this album is much more somber and “darker”?
MK: Well, listening back to it it’s so hard to clarify what it’s sounding like when you’re in the midst of it and that’s your life, that’s all your thinking about. Looking back on it I’m not comfortable necessarily to say that it is darker but compared to Devil it’s definitely a lot moodier. Devil was a very happy and it was easy to do while this was a little harder.
SBN: So I think another major point to take away from this album is that you worked with two producers on this. I know it’s been asked before on how it was to work with two producers so my question would be, did a certain producer influence the way certain songs came about? Hypothetically say that on the track “Georgia” having worked on it with the producer you did how do you think it would have sounded like working on the song with the other producer?
JC: We had a pretty general idea going into the record on what song we wanted to work with which producer. I think only one of the songs on the record came down to like, hey should we do this with Colby or should we do this with Aaron. We knew what we wanted to do kind of and what songs we wanted to do with each. Yet still even at that their influence on the songs have major impact.
LA: It’s a good point though, like if we would have done “Georgia” with [Aaron] Marsh, then it might have turned out completely different.
JC: Yeah, absolutely.
LA: They definitely influenced it but we just brought the core of the song and then all three of us didn’t try to dive too deep into any of the songs before we got into the studio, only then to just kind of have a go at it. You just kind of get on a roll and the song just forms. I feel like if you try to take a song and work on it for a three month period, by the end you’re just like “I don’t even like this song anymore” you know? Too many cooks in the kitchen, too many changes. I like to just bring a core song into the studio and then on the spot just go at it. Kind of feel it out.
SBN: The record seems really diverse, online reviews seem to give it a mixed reaction polarized between either whole heartedly loving it and embracing the “new” Lydia or just harking back to the “old” Lydia and the era of Illuminate. Whats your thoughts on that?
JC: You want to know my thoughts specifically?
SBN: Yes.
MK: [Laughs]
JC: Lydia (points to Layton) this guy specifically put out Illuminate. Which is a great record and obviously it was a fan favorite and big thing. Like you said everywhere you go online people are saying “oh it’s not Illuminate”. If we put out Illuminate again, there would be a small amount of people who would say “oh this sounds like Illuminate”. Awesome. We’re not going to put out the same record twice. If you want to listen to Illuminate, you can always go and listen to Illuminate.
MK: On top of that, no disrespect to anybody who thinks that Illuminate is their favorite record and if it meant everything to them when they first heard that, awesome and if they’re bummed that we’re not putting out anything similar to that then its totally their opinion and thank you to still listening to anything that we put out. Thanks for being a part of it, but also like we’re not going anywhere and we’re going to continue doing things with every single record being something different from the previous because we can never just settle on a sound to pick on and say definitively that this is our sound.
SBN: I mean it’s a constantly evolving thing, and a lot of bands that have been together for ten years have either stuck a sound or have evolved completely from where they started to where they are now, sometimes in a direction that people don’t like. But at the same time you have bands like Bring Me The Horizon which had done a completely 180 from their Metalcore sound to complete Radio Pop. So I guess this has kind of sparked the conversation of should a band stay within a genre, cause I know you guys like to explore different sounds, different melodies and even genre blending and all this is showcased pretty well in Run Wild. Going into this record did you want to explore a particular sound more or try to recreate a bygone sound?
LA: We definitely didn’t want to recreate anything. We always wanted to try and make a new record. I would hate to go into a record and be like “lets try to make a song like, remember that one song yeah like that song”. I don’t understand why anybody would want to do that or even want to heart that. Like why would you want to hear another song that’s like that. It doesn’t make sense to me. We all kind of write songs on our own like exclusively and then we bring them to the table. We don’t just get into a room and just play together, so the writing process isn’t like “hey lets write a song that’s like quicker or like this”. The first time we hear it is when one of us brings it to the other person, so its hard to say why we wrote this album, it kind of organically happened.
JC: Trying to categorize what you’re trying to do is like limiting yourself as a human being, like you can’t just be like “oh we have to write this indie song because our fans want to listen to an indie song that sounds like that.” It’s like putting a ceiling over your head and you’re trying to jump into the sky and being confined. It blows my mind that people want to do be confined and limited.
SBN: So hows the fan reception on tour been with the record released? How has it been to see the people sing the new songs along with you two weeks into the release cycle?
JC: It’s definitely a huge release.
MK: It’s awesome.
JC: We had the record finished recording back in February, and we’ve just been working on it constantly and we were like “is this thing ever going to come out?” and now its finally here and you know the first three shows of the tour the record wasn’t even out yet, so playing the new songs were a little weird. I mean the people knew two of the songs we’d released already but now two weeks in and to look out and seeing people dancing and singing to the new songs just feel awesome.
MK: It’s a good feeling and it took a while to get there. Even like he said we were pretty much done in February but it was still a long and tedious process, even down to mixing like recording new vocals and changing parts, rearranging things, nowadays its not like you wrap it all up and send it off and say it’s done but instead it can be worked on till the very end and we were. It took a lot out of us but its really freaking cool to see people holding it and singing along.
LA: I mean we also play a lot of the old stuff too, like we only play like 5 new songs and our set is like 17/18 songs. So like I think some people think that we’re going to play the new record front to back but we play a lot of our old stuff too.
JC: It’s a fun set.
MK: It’s pretty diverse.
SBN: So from the new record is there a favorite song that you wouldn’t mind listening to it constantly on repeat?
MK: That’s a tough one.
LA: That’d be pretty egotistical. [Laughing]
SBN: It is a little, but is there a song that was super special to you maybe due to a memory associated with it during the recording process or just something that stood out to you about it?
MK: “When It Gets Dark Out” I’ve heard that song so many times and it doesn’t piss me off yet so I think it’s a good sign that I still dig it.
JC: I’m into “The Sounds In Your Dream” that one I feel like just has a really cool vibe to it. I really wish we were playing that one. Next time.
LA: I wish we were playing “Watching the Lights”. I guess all three of us are a little all over the place.
MK: It’ll probably happen in the future.
SBN: So to wrap up, I always like to ask bands that are already out on tour what their dream tour lineup is?
JC: I’m going last.
MK: I mean it’d probably be like Beatles, Kanye and John Mayer or something like that.
JC: That was my answer!
MK: Well its cause it’s THE answer, like is there any other answer to that question?
LA: I’m going to agree with that answer too.
JC: John Mayer playing Continuum.
MK: Kanye playing 808s & Heartbreak and the Beatles playing all their cool song.
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