Cryptacize Interview

Here is my interview with 66.6(repeating)% of Cryptacize, who I mentioned in my last post, and who are still on tour. This interview took place 2008-10-24 Fri in a car motoring from Oakland to San Francisco over the San Francisco Bay, by way of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. I rode shotgun while Chris Cohen (guitar, vocals) drove. Nedelle Torrisi (guitar, autoharp, vocals) sat behind me, opposite our friend Yasi. Percussionist/harmonica enthusiast Michael Carreira stayed in the East Bay.


So... how's it going?

NT: You've never done this before, have you?

I hear that you've been working on a record lately?

CC: Where'd you hear that?

I dunno, from the internet.

CC: You heard it from me.

So how's it been going? So you're recording in your mountain hideaway?

CC: We recorded in a lot of different places. We recorded at Nedelle's parents in Nedelle's brother's old room in Vacaville. We recorded in our closet. We recorded at my parent's house in L.A. We recorded at their cabin too, near Yosemite. We haven't had our apartment, so we've been traveling around and living in different places and recording where we could.

Are you recording onto laptop, I guess?

CC: Yeah, we've recorded it all in ProTools. Our friend calls it "Blow Tools". I don't think it blows, I like it.

So how is this album shaping up compared to the last one?

CC: Pretty bad. No, I'm just kidding.

NT: It's good. I think it's better.

CC: It's better? Are you asking when you say "shaping up", do you mean good or bad, or...?

Well, just in terms of, is it a new musical direction, or is it more of the same?

CC: It's a lot thicker. It's the same direction in a lot of ways, but it's been executed more thickly.

Like in terms of more overdubs, or in terms of using distortion this time...?

CC: Well, there was lots of distortion on Dig That Treasure.

NT: It was accidental distortion, this time it's intentional.

CC: We got new fuzz pedals. But yeah, there's a lot more overdubs, and kind of like a more fantasy approach, where we didn't know how to play the songs beforehand, except for a couple of them. The last time we recorded, we knew how to play all of our songs, pretty much, and then we recorded them together.

I understand [drummer/percussionist] Mike [Carreira] wasn't along for these various trips?

CC: Mike came out to the cabin to do his drum tracks a couple different times. He did a couple trips. And then we would show him stuff after we did it, periodically. Mike didn't really do any overdubs. A lot of songs actually just started with the drums, and Mike never really went back and did another pass at a song, he would pretty much do one take.

He was perfect from the start?

CC: Yeah, you might say.

So I guess the songs had to retain the same structure as your initial take on them because of that?

CC: No, because we chopped it up a lot after. A lot of the structure of the songs totally changed since Mike recorded his drums. And we did a lot of things that were actually loops and stuff, although you wouldn't necessarily know that.

So what stage are you at now? You've recorded all the stuff, have you mixed it yet?

CC: Yeah, we've been mixing it for almost two months or something. We're not quite done.

Is it gonna come out on the same label as last time?

CC: Yeah, same label, Asthmatic Kitty. We're gonna put out a 7", hopefully before the album comes out. We're working on something with Burning Star Core. He's gonna edit our album down to a couple minutes, so it's gonna be like a highlights reel, and that'll be a sneak peak of the album. A 'sizzle reel'. One side of it's gonna be that, and the other side of it hopefully, if everything goes as planned, is gonna be... well, it's a surprise.

And that will be on the same label?

CC: No. Actually, we don't have a label to put that out yet; we're shopping.

What are you doing for the videos?

CC: We're gonna make some ourselves; we got a camera. We were watching these squirrels at my parents' house. My parents bought a bird feeder and they filled it with sunflower seeds, and they put it on their back porch. But my dad was too lazy to hang it up in the tree, so he just left it on the porch, and then all these squirrels have come to eat it, and the birds can't get at it. These squirrels have these super-macho power struggles over food, and we have a lot of footage of that we're considering maybe somehow using.

NT: I was gonna make them lip-sync to one of our songs, because when they're eating their mouths are moving really fast, but if you slow it down, it can look like they're singing.

CC: Also, there are some really cute ones, like there are these little baby ones. There's chipmunks and squirrels.

NT: And they also do some dance moves sometimes that are really cute.

CC: And we also have some other videos maybe in the works. Our friend Darren Keen, a.k.a. "The Show is the Rainbow" is going to make one and this dude Donovan Vim Crony is hopefully gonna make a video for us too.

What exactly is the deal with this Danielson tour? You're gonna be in their backing band?

CC: We're gonna be involved somehow. We're not really exactly sure.

NT: I know we're gonna wear some cool shoes.

CC: Yeah, we saw pictures of the shoes the other day.

NT: Specialized shoes made by John Fluevog for Danielson.

But are you guys are gonna be playing as part of the Danielson band?

CC: We asked them if we could open for them; we have the same booking guy. Erik, the booking guy said that Daniel's putting together a new band, because the family can't go on tour so I was like, maybe we can offer to play in his band, as an incentive, if we played in the band for free.

Have you been listening to all their CD's just in case?

CC: Yeah, he gave us a list of the possible songs, so we're trying to learn all the words.

NT: I'm trying.

CC: Nedelle's trying. I'm gonna cram at the last second, cause I have to finish mixing our record...

NT: You should listen to the CD nonstop on the flight to the East Coast. I'm excited.

So that's the situation for the whole tour? You're opening for them?

CC: Yeah, he's taking us along for the whole tour. We're very grateful to him.

So what's the future after this next tour? The album comes out in...?

NT: April. We're just gonna try to get jobs again, and work on some videos and 7"'s and just fun things, but kinda just wait for the record to come out.

Did you have a lot of extra songs that you wrote and aren't using?

NT: We had one extra song, which hopefully we can arrange in a way that pleases all of us.

CC: And we have lots of tiny parts that we threw out.

You kind of have a bucket of those sitting around, that you can string together into songs?

Yasi: How tiny?

CC: Pretty tiny.

Yasi: Like a bar?

NT: Everywhere from a bar, sure, definitely... Like a little riff...

Yasi: Less than a bar?

NT: Oh, Chris probably has some that are less than a bar.

CC: No...

NT: Really? But you have real short things.

CC: They go by fast.

NT: Mine are mostly whole chord progressions. Chris has a lot of riffs.

CC: I have one that I can show you right now. Actually, this one hasn't been thrown out yet though, and it actually might already be a song, I'm not sure. I've been kinda working on it. It goes like [sings]... I think it might be stolen from the breakdown in "Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer. Like [sings]...

NT: No, that's not it, [sings]...

Do you have that problem a lot, where you write something, and then you're like, "oh wait, that's Ghostbusters", or something?

NT: I think we've had moments like that, not like ripping off "Ghostbusters" per se, but...

[Yasi whispers something to Nedelle.]

NT: No way, really?

CC: You've ripped it off?

NT: How did Conor just pull that out?

Yasi: Ghostbusters? I don't know, we didn't talk about it.

NT: That's weird.

What?

CC: Nedelle thinks that I ripped off the NPR theme.

NT: Yeah, the "All Things Considered", it goes [sings]...

Yasi: Yeah, yeah.

CC: It sounds like it when you sing it, but when you hear it, it doesn't really...

Yasi: No, I wasn't saying "yeah", I was saying "yeah" like, "I love that song".

CC: I actually don't love that song at all, but I guess...

NT: We had to take that part out of the song.

So do you see yourselves doing any other musical projects besides Cryptacize?

CC: I don't see myself doing anything other than Cryptacize.

NT: Nor do I.

CC: I see myself sitting in the chair in front of the computer for 20 hours.

What about The Curtains, is that ever gonna come back?

CC: The Curtains is like if I wasn't doing this. Cryptacize is kind of more fun.

Are you guys are planning on doing another headline tour in the spring?

CC: We're hoping that some band will take us on tour with them. For our booking agent to book shows for us, he makes like what you would make working at McDonald's, setting up shows for us. He is willing to do it, and he will do it if no one else wants us to open for them. But yeah, hopefully someone will come along and swoop us up, and present us to all of their fans.

Are there any bands that you've noticed have been influenced by you guys yet?

CC: No. I've noticed a lot of bands that have influenced us. I don't know, James Brown probably is our biggest influence. As far as inspiration of the greatest, the most untouchable, the most hardcore, he's the ultimate musician to me.