Soul Control
BRM has done it again. We've hunted down, captured and documented the most innovative and exciting artists to recently emerge on a number of different scenes. All month long we’ll be running interviews with our discoveries to help get you ready for what’s to come in 2010. But to get a complete look at our full list of emerging artists, check out our current winter issue.
Hypocrites – they should be ostracized, embarrassed, shunned, pointed out as the frauds they are. Tar and feather them. Unless those hypocrites are Rhode Island’s Soul Control, in which case just be thankful.
Guitarist Jim Connolly, once said that the band would never release a full-length. But with new singer Rory Van Grol, and a serious record label to work with, we now have Cycles.
Its creation isn’t the only surprising thing about the band’s debut. From the first song onward, Cycles delivers the compulsory hardcore hammering. But when the mosh pit ends, resonating pedal effects and melodies continue. Soul Control doesn’t stick to formulaic hardcore. Not anymore than the band’s thoughts on releasing records anyway.
BRM: You said you would never release a record. What happened?
Jim Connolly: Oh yeah, that’s the quote that comes up in everything in the world, that I said we would never release a full-length. I can’t escape that quote. At the point that I said that we were happy just doing that. I think that was in Revolver I said that…and the part that he left out was that we would do a full-length as long as we were signed to a label that would push us really hard. We were actually on Bridge Nine, but we weren’t allowed to announce it.
How was it making Cycles?
JC: It was great. The most time we had ever spent in a studio before that was about three days. We had two weeks, so we got to really take our time and do whatever we wanted.
Rory Van Grol: As far as I go, my studio time will be as little as possible. I just want to record my vocals and get out of there. They could spend a month recording a record and as long as I’m there for three or four days to do my part I don’t care. They’re the sound people; I like doing my parts. But I don’t want to be there while Jim is sitting there on one note getting the right tone; I don’t need to be there for that.
What’s the music writing process like?
RVG: I make no riffs. I make no riffs at all. I’ll make suggestions. Like if we’re practicing, ‘what about a bow-bow-doom-dow?’ something stupid like that trying to translate music in some way. But it doesn’t really work.
JC: It’s just one of us will write a riff and then we’ll just play it. The rule we still have is if we like it, we’re going to write the song and we don’t care if it fits into just that hardcore specific genre.
RVG: There’s also communication on all fronts but we know where our strengths lie.
Would you call your sound ‘hardcore’?
JC: We’ve all been hardcore kids for the requisite amount of years to be cool. We’ve gone to shows for a long time. We all listen to a lot of non-hardcore stuff at the same time. I think that’s why it comes out in the music so much.
What kind of influences are those?
JC: Shoegaze is definitely a huge influence on me, especially with all the effects.
You also use a bit of humor, like the Jimi Hendrix cover you did with 108’s Trivikrama dasa at the end of the album. Explain that one.
JC: The studio we were recording at had a sign that said ‘seal the deal’ and Triv thought that was the name of the studio. Just in his head he made up this crazy story about a half-man, half-seal business man who works at the studio. He was cracking himself up and he told Eric to sing a song about it and then he just started playing Jimi Hendrix. Without telling him, Jay the recorder turned up the mic in the other room and just cranked it so he could pick it up.
We threw it on the CD because, why not? It’s hilarious. From the coat, you have some fun taking photos too.
JC: We haven’t taken a promo picture in probably a year so we’re really bad at it. We’re constantly goofing off. We’re trying to be serious for her and we just really couldn’t. And we saw the [leopard print] coat and Eric is very outgoing and just needed to have the coat and made it happen.
Whose coat is it?
JC: She was just some hippie chick, something like that. And we were like, ‘Hey, can we use your coat?’ Then she asked us to trade her weed in order to use her coat. We didn’t have any but she still agreed. So we used this smelly coat for the picture and we gave her a CD, just to give her something. Then we just realized she just left it on a wall. She didn’t even take the CD.
How would you handle it if you became a huge band? Would you keep that same sense of humor?
RVG: How would we handle that? I have no fucking clue. We’d probably just laugh about it and be [like] ‘this is ridiculous.’ We’d love to be able to play music in our own realm and to be able to do what we want to do. If we could make some money off it, well that would be awesome. But at the same time we’re not going to dummy down what we’re doing to be this famous band or have this rock star aesthetic. I think we’ll be the same people. We’ll just be able to pay rent when we go home.
How is it touring on the new album?
RVG: It’s not much different; we’re still in a nine passenger Conversion van with just us four guys and our equipment. If we weren’t able to make fun of each other and not take each other too seriously I don’t think we’d still be a band especially touring as much as we are right now. Not much has really changed except we have a little more merch and our new record out.
JC: We’ve been mainly doing the new record live. It’s good for us because obviously as a band, you like your new stuff the best and want to play mainly your new stuff. So the fact that we’re able to do that and people aren’t bummed on it is a good thing.
RVG: Recording for me is just like a necessity, it’s great to get what you’re doing on record. But for me it’s always fabricated in some way. Live I think is the part where the intensity and the emotional aspects play a role for me. I don’t think I can truly convey how feel. I see a band live and that’s what I really get out of it, not necessarily on record all the time. I always go back and go ‘oh, this sucks, I could have done this better, I could have done this better, this doesn’t sound right to me.’ I’m always second guessing myself on record, whereas live that’s what it is in all its imperfections and everything wrapped up in a nutshell.
Like they say, hindsight is always 20/20.
RVG: Correct, hindsight is always 20/20. And if we are our own worst critics, someone writes the review and is like ‘this song sucks,’ we’re like, ‘yeah it does, you’re right. Cool. You get it.’ We’re not going to be bummed that someone else pointed out that our song sucks. We’re like, ‘alright we want to hang out with this dude. He’s keeping it real.’ Just give it to use straight. Real recognizes real.
[Both laugh]
RVG: There you go. You can stop using the Jim ‘we won’t ever write a full-length’ thing and just focus on ‘real recognizes real.’
Words by Michael Ronan
Photo by: Nina Robinson
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