Interview with The Accidentals 11/13/17

Nicole: Your music has been defined as “genre-bending”, ranging from classical to indie to classical and bluegrass. What led you to traverse so many genres?

Katie: “We all come from musical families, I think that different genres in our families attributed to that, and also our public high school in Northern Michigan really encouraged us to use the orchestral instruments and branch out, so the school invested in some electric cellos, violins and violas, and helped us form a club called the alternative styles club, where Sav and I would stay after school and she would teach me like fiddle tunes by ear, or we’d do Led Zeppelin arrangements and Coldplay and all sorts of things. I think that was a big contributor.

Sav: We also all grew up in musical families, my parents met in Nashville and my dad introduced me to The Beatles and Radiohead and Queen at an early age. Katie’s parents are both classical musicians

Katie: Yeah, my parents [gave me] a little jazz and classical influence. I know Michael’s mom is a classical singer.

Michael: Growing up too, I had two very different musical ideas being thrown at me because my mom was a very big Bee Gees and Barry Manilow fan, and then my dad was like 80s house music, like–

Katie: Depeche Mode!

Michael: Yeah, Depeche Mode (laughs), stuff like that. So it was the juxtaposition of super pop music and super not-pop music.

Nicole: So was having musical families what got you started in music?

Sav: I think it was a combination of having musical backgrounds and accessibility to music through our educational programs. It was super important that they came in as early as they did and introduced us [to] cool instruments.

Katie: In fifth grade we had the ability to choose to be in choir, orchestra or band. In our city, as well as Michael’s, correct?

Michael: Yeah, we started in sixth grade, but–

Katie: We started in fifth grade!

Michael: (laughs) I know, you guys are a year ahead.

Katie: I think that definitely helped encourage us to start. Music seems so natural in my house, I don’t think I would’ve picked it up if it weren’t for the mandatory school.

Nicole: Was there ever a time where there was a spark like, ‘okay, this is what I want to pursue’?

Michael: I think it was a really organic growth. From our parents bringing us up in musical households. Especially for Savannah and Katie, Savannah started playing with her family’s band when she was like twelve doing violin, and Katie’s parents working at Interlocken [Music Festival].

Sav: I think individually it would’ve been hard to make that decision for ourselves, but as a group there is always that reliance on each other. So if it’s a team thing, it’s almost like you want to do it together rather than going it alone.

Katie: I definitely latched onto music through the orchestra program more so than any sport I’ve ever played or after school activity. Then, as soon as we formed a duo it was another kind of team project that was really easy to put your energy behind when it just clicks so easily.

Nicole: So I understand you just released your third full-length record, Odyssey, which also happens to be your first label-backed release. Can you take me through the process of making the record?

Sav: The album itself is a culmination itself of the past six years being a band. There’s some songs on there that are three or four years old that we’ve played thousands and thousands of times at different gigs, and then there are some songs on there that are really brand new. But all of them kind of find a way to tell the story both from the past and in real time. So, we picked the songs that best reflect the journey we’ve taken on in the past six years. Actually, what was really crazy about the recording process was that it was a journey all by itself which is kind of why the album title worked really well for it. What happened was that we went into the studio, we were originally supposed to work with one producer but a project of his went over so we had to find another guy to work with in like, a split second. We found this guy named Jason Lenning and so we all got in a studio together and we recorded between the election, the legendary Cubs game, Christmas, Halloween–we were in this basement while the world was shifting and changing around us. It’s kind of crazy, when we came out of the other side, the world felt a little bit different, I think. It took us months and months to mix this album and to master it and get that balance between what was good, live sound and what was going to have longevity. So, in the end, we settled for this album and it actually worked out the way we intended it to. Now we have this album that represents what we sound like, all these songs we’ve had for years you finally get to hear it in recorded format which is cool, and it’s really unlike anything we’ve ever done because, one, it’s our major-label debut with Sony Masterworks, and two, it’s very authentic and organic to who we are.

Nicole: Speaking of your major-label debut, how is it releasing music on a label versus releasing music independently?

Sav: Well, our label does our worldwide distribution for us, which makes things a million times easier, because trying to distribute our music worldwide as a band is really, really difficult, and to start building your team around you from the get-go already changes things a bit for us.

Katie: It’s been an ever-evolving, growing team since Savannah started and Amber (our tour manager) and Michael came onboard, now we have a road crew including our sound engineer, and then our business has grown too, so it’s really bizarre, we just turned 21 and 22, so we’re kind of learning how to be a growing business, working with a business manager, working with a booking agent, working with the label, all one step at a time. So it’s been a really good learning experience I think.

Sav: What’s funny about the recording process is that nothing really changed from working independently to when we signed with Sony because they gave us free reign over the production and the recording and performance of this album, so it’s incredibly true to who we are and it’s a cool introduction. And, it’s kind of unheard of for major labels to hand over that kind of power to twenty-two year olds for their debut (laughs).

Katie: One of the most exciting things about signing with Sony when we got onboard was their international department, so they’ve got great ties with Europe and Japan, and we’d really love to travel.

Nicole: Any idea where in the world you’d like to travel?

Sav: I know Katie is learning Japanese.

Katie: I’ve really only listened to half of a CD of Japanese tapes.

Sav: It would be really cool to go to Japan.

Katie: It would be really cool. I’ve been listening to a lot of Australian music lately. It would be beautiful to go to Europe too. Sav has been to Scotland.

Sav: I’ve been to Denmark, Scotland, the UK, Finland–a couple of places. I’d love to go back to Scotland, that was really cool. And Ireland–people keep telling us that we should go to Ireland so I’d love to do that.

Michael: I have never been anywhere over there. Like, the only other country I’ve been to is Canada and that was this year. We played a few shows there–I live outside of Detroit, so I only live like 30 minutes from the border. So, I might hang out there when I have some time this weekend. We played a festival in Owen Sound, Ontario, we played a show in Toronto and we played a show in Vancouver on this last tour. It’s been awesome to see the differences between how festivals and venues are run up there, and just meeting these awesome people that we never knew before. We basically went to Canada and did not know any of the other bands on the lineup and then met these awesome groups that we’re still keeping in contact with and trying to do some more shows with so I think it was a really awesome time in Canada this year.

Nicole: Good for you guys, that’s fantastic. Now, going back to your writing process, which instruments do you find yourselves starting songs off on?

Sav: We’re pretty boring, we just start with guitar (laughs). We did get our start on violin and cello in high school–actually, Katie was also the jazz guitarist in my high school, everyone thought she was the coolest person ever, like ‘oh my gosh, who is that girl playing electric guitar?’ When it comes to the writing process, it’s actually really individual, we use it almost as a form of therapy in a way. It’s a way to cope, to rethink chaos and the ups and downs of tour life. When you get home, you have a lot to say about it, so we end up writing a lot about that separately, and then we’ll bring a song to the table and the three of us will arrange parts for it together. It’s really cool, because after you’ve been playing live for three years in a row full-time and like hundreds of shows together, it’s almost as if you have this telepathy, in a way. You can each contribute ideas and try them out, but you also have this understanding for each other that builds an idea into like a real song.

Nicole: In terms of your own sound, where do you see it heading?

Sav: I think the thing about our sound is that it never started with any limitations, it never started with a genre. And so I don’t really foresee it turning into one genre or another because that’s not really the path it took from the beginning. I think we were always trying to bend genres and always trying to avoid finding things to label our songs: even in the studio we were trying to let each song breathe on its own rather than trying to shoehorn it into one thing or the other. And so, I think the path to the future is to keep trying new things because that’s kind of our MO. It’s to keep exploring new avenues. We’ve toured with a lot of bands too and they taught us about their style, what they’re doing uniquely. We’ve just been adapting and learning from what they do. So more collaboration, more learning and more adaptation will probably be in our future.

Nicole: Is there any genre or instrument that you haven’t touched on yet that you want to work with?

Katie and Sav: Saxophone (laughs).

Katie: Michael, what are you thinking of?

Michael: My brain went to theramin.

Sav: We’ve actually talked about having a horn section.

Katie: I love horn. It’s amazing, when you go on the road you see listening rooms and these amazing storytelling concerts, and I want to be like, ‘I want to write this cool Americana, really stripped-down song,’ and then we see a funk band in New Orleans and I’m like, ‘alright guys, time to get a horn section, let’s get some cool lighting and write a disco song,’ so I feel like the traveling is as much inspirational as anything else. What’s really cool is having Michael in the picture now because some of the songs on the album were arranged when we were in high school, so now that we’re moving forward with a new idea of what we can do onstage. I think it’s going to be really fun.

Nicole: That’s great. Well, I know your lead single off Odyssey of the same name draws parallels from the eponymous epic: what about the story inspired the song?

Sav: Actually, I’ve been pretty passionate about Greek mythology since I was a little kid, and also I’m currently writing a novel where a lot of that is tied into it, so I’ve always been a nerd about it. The song is more about personal journeys and finding your own voice and moving forward despite obstacles. For a while, I thought a way to do that was just to power through things, like, ‘just get through this one tour’, or ‘get through these five mechanical breakdowns’, and process it later, but I think what is more important is that you learn to be vulnerable first, and I think that is where the true strength actually lies. That’s really what that song is more about. That’s why it sums up our album pretty well: there’s a lot of vulnerability in it, and at the same time we feel like it’s the strongest representation of our voice we’ve ever put out. It really tells the story of where we’re at, where we’ve been and where we are going.

Nicole: The recent music video for Odyssey features some beautiful scenery, live footage and even the band playing in a body of water. Can you tell me a little bit about the making of the video?

Sav: Hell yeah, we can (laughs).

Katie: Filming the music video was so much fun, we worked with a production company based out of Michigan called Practical Productions, and everything we do we kind of fit it between our tour dates, so this project for Odyssey, we fit it between a couple of tours at the end of August. We had two days to film in peak end-of-summertime in Michigan, and so we had just happened to find a perfect day to do the water scene on the lake. Spoiler alert: we’re not actually standing on the water (laughs). We’re standing on a perfectly crafted platform. We were in someone’s backyard who lived on a lake, and there was this little canoe hanging around, so we all got into the canoe with a really cheap drum set that we ordered online and my precious cello, and we paddled over to the platform. We lucked out with the weather. Not so much with the amphitheatre–the outdoor scene.

Sav: Yeah, literally as soon as we got done with the outdoor scene, we were like ‘that’s a wrap’, and all of a sudden the sky split open as soon as you heard the clap. All of our instruments were lying around, the PA system–but we have a really devoted base of people who have been supporting us from the very beginning, so when we called them and were like, ‘how many people can we get to go to a fake show?’, five hundred people showed up. These people found tarps to cover our gear and to load it back up that night. We had to fly out to Colorado at 4AM for a tour the next day and they helped us get ready to go and everything. Lots of crazy scenes but I know it made the shoot really memorable.

Nicole: Alright well, I know you have a show in a little bit so I’m going to wrap it up with one more question: how do you feel about playing tonight in New York?

Sav: Oh, man. New York is always really exciting but also kind of anxiety inducing just because there’s so many amazing artists out in New York and so many things to do. It can be really hard getting your van and trailer through the streets but it is super fun looking out the window and seeing a whole other world different than what you’re used to in a small town in Michigan. Every time I come here to New York I think about how lucky we are to be here.