This spring, local indie rockers The Stay Lows dropped their latest full length album, The Signature Bridge. As some reviews of the album are already out, silo3 met up with the band in order to break it down-- track-by-track, "director's commentary" style. In the process, the band delved into how the songs were written, the concepts behind them, and most importantly which one is JP Losman's favorite.The Stay Lows are:
Jim Schiffert-Guitar,Bass,Vox
Eric Kendall - Guitar
Rick Wright - Cello
Brandon Delmont - Drums
Jeff Delmerico - Bass, Keys
1) Burning None
"What's kind of weird is-- and it's the same thing with the last album-- the order we have been writing them, is how they've been ending up on the albums too. I don't know if that means anything, but that's where we started and the songs progress as we progressed going through it. So if somebody has it on 'shuffle'-- don't." (RW)
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"It's a great intro to what we were trying to accomplish, by releasing the four songs we had written previously and then bridging into the newer stuff." (RW)
2)Business of Taking Care
"That song, more that the rest of them, evolved during the mixing." (JS)
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"That's probably one of the first songs where we wanted the vocals to be prevalent in writing (the song) at least." (EK)
"Actually, more of the new stuff is 50/50 right now, if not weighted more toward the vocal side." (JS)
"Yeah, our next album is going to be doo-wop" (BD)
3)They Smoked the Moonlanding
"I really like the concept of industrial-in-motion. When we started the electronic drum beats on there and in some of the other parts, it just started morphing. We had a couple of themes going into the album and post-album a couple more came out." (RW)
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"That was also JP Losman's favorite song-- he told us." (RW)
"At a Califone show. We opened for Califone and he was there." (EK)
"He came up to us after the set and said he liked us. We had a demo of 'Moonlanding' up (online) and he's like, 'Yeah, it's on my pump-up tape.' " (JS)
4)Are You Guys Pilots?
“That’s actually my favorite song. I guess playing it on drums, it’s cool, you get the best of both worlds. You have a groovy, I don’t want to say dance-y or whatever, but it has a feeling to it more than just like-- rock. Then it kind of goes into, a rock thing. But I don’t know it’s just a really good song.” (BD)
5)Haunted Mouse
“Haunted Mouse was the one song written in that weird practice space on Main St.” (RW)
“We would just heard these two bands that were really loud (all the time).” (BD)
“It was the quietest song we wrote ‘til it progresses…” (RW)
“...until the guitar part then we’re like ‘All right, we have to be louder than the other bands in the space and this is what we’re writing right now.’ “ (JS)
6)Back of the Face
“When we were recording, and we got to that final part, things started just adding on, and adding on-- that’s when I started kind of getting excited about it. Because, there’s a lot of stuff going on and it was just crescendo-ing very nicely.” (RW)
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“I always thought (the song) was hysterical… We played with this band Dungen, from Sweden, and the dude from that band came up to us and said (in a Swedish accent)‘That song you did was beautiful-- that dun-ga-dun-ga-da dun-ga-dun-ga-da.’ It was great.” (BD)
7)To Evil (Waltz)
“I came up with the original thing at home and I had just started playing with them. I went out on a limb and showed these guys (the song). They took it and turned it into what it is. But it was a totally new idea for me to be in a band where people listened to me.” (BD)
“And that was the last time that ever happened…” (JS)
8)Ugly Babies
“When we play live, we’re a loud band. We’re not deafeningly loud, but we’re up there on the decibel level, and when we were writing that song, I wanted something that took take advantage of the fact that we play loud.” (JS)
“Yeah people nod their heads. People tap their toes…” (RW)
“I don’t really understand why it works, but it seems to.” (JS)
9) The Pastoral
“What I like about that song-- it has such a great sad, tinge-y melody. But then there’s the comedic part, the 70’s cop part, and this is probably very Stay Lows, is to take a really nice, beautiful piece of music and then lob it between comic, you know, cop parts and stuff.” (BD)
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“That song's a good closer.” (EK)
“Yeah, its kind of like when Hercules walks off on the path, but with that like ‘To be continued…’ ” (RW)
