daysormay – Ego

By starrymag | September 28, 2021

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

Aidan: We’re just making music that we would want to listen to.

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

Aidan: I feel like I’ve been influenced (directly and subconsciously) by Tyler, the Creator for like five or six years now. He’s definitely at the top of the list.

Carson: Rage Against the Machine is definitely my biggest. Not just musical, but their whole vision. It was something bigger than just themselves and that is something I’m always striving for.

Q) How did growing up in Vernon, BC play a role in the music you make?

Aidan: We struggled to find local music we could identify with at first and I think that kind of pushed us to YouTube and Soundcloud to discover new stuff. We never felt like we fit in to the local scene that much. We more did our own thing in our own lane. I feel like that comes across in the music.

Carson: Like Aidan said, it was pretty tough to find exactly what we were looking for musically in Vernon, but us being pushed to look elsewhere like online really had an impact on our sounds and what we know is capable in music.

Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “Ego.”

Aidan: Carson sent me the beat in the summer of 2018, with a different instrumental over it. I took everything out except for the most minimal drums and then gradually rebuilt the instrumental. I was adding like one or two pieces per day and some days I would listen to it for hours and then take out what I had added the day before. It was super relaxed and focused. After that I brought it to the band, and we filled it out from there. We were really lucky to have been able to tour the song so much before recording the final version, it let us bring some new energy into it.

Q) How did you come to work with Steve Bays on the single?

Aidan: We’ve been working with Steve on almost the entire album, since doing Role Model with him in 2018. He was the perfect fit for the song. His studio (Tugboat Pl) is really experiment-friendly. There’s so much gear to play with, so we spent a week in there with him just grinding out every detail of “Ego.”

Carson: Steve was recommended to us by one of our friends and it is crazy to think what this album would be without him. He pushed us to make music in ways I didn’t know we could and take certain “risks” that ended up being our favorite moments on the album.

Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

Aidan: I’m actually not sure. It feels like the most “us” song we’ve made, so that could be part of it.

Carson: I think people are connecting with it more than our other music because it has an in-your-face energy that makes you love it or hate it, which for me is exactly what my favorite songs do.

Q) How does the blue palette of the video for the track play into the message behind it?

Aidan: The blue color scheme partially came from seeing a painting with Yves Klein’s International’s “Klein Blue” in a gallery in Cologne, Germany. We were playing some shows in Europe and checked out the gallery on our day off. The color was just so deep and rich in person, it was imprinted on my brain. I couldn’t forget about it.

Carson: Blue has just been in our lives during the formative process of the album. A lot of the songs were written in our old rehearsal space which was entirely blue. So, we needed to show the visual influence to the music, since they go hand in hand.

Q) There was just a three-person camera crew for it and Aidan edited the video himself. Aidan, what made you feel confident enough to take on such a big responsibility?

Aidan: Necessity. Back when we first started taking this seriously, I realized I didn’t want to wait around until I found someone who knew how to make videos. So, I just figured it out myself. I’ve been editing our videos since then.

Q) What is your song writing process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

Aidan: It’s different every time. I have a lot of lyrics in my phone, and I also write a journal sometimes. So, if the music is there already, I’ll try and see if any of the lyrics I already have fit with it. But other times I’ll just sing gibberish over musical ideas and write to fill the syllables.

Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?

Aidan: This album has kind of been us learning production. We weren’t really huge into producing before this batch of songs. Steve Bays is producing the majority of the songs on the album, but we’re really particular about sound design and sample choices, so songs like “The Trend” and “Ego” are a lot of our production as well.

Carson: I like to think the production is a room the song lives in, so it has been a very collaborative process with Steve making the sounds and samples fit the mood of the album. Before this album I knew nothing about production but getting to work with Steve has opened my eyes and let me experiment more knowing he could make it sound complete and concise.

Q) With concerts having been on hold, what have you missed most about being on stage?

Aidan: Mainly the physical aspect of it, it’s always super cathartic and I’ve been feeling that absence a lot.

Carson: The energy exchange is what I miss most, and something you can’t get anywhere else. Us letting go on stage and people letting go in the crowd is indescribable.

Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?

Aidan: I’d love to go back to Europe. I loved the vibe of the venues and people seemed to just like live music, even if they didn’t know who we were. I would love to explore more of the US again, too. I think they were significant just because they were both such formative moments in our lives, artistically.

Carson: Europe and the US have been my favorites so far. People seem to get our music and there are more artists in the same world who we have had the pleasure of meeting and playing with.

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

Aidan: That’s tough to say. I have so many.

Carson: There are lots of artists and I’m sure some we haven’t even met yet who we could want to work with. I love collaboration since it usually pushes everyone involved to make something out of their comfort zone, but I’d say we will be collaborating more in the future.

Q) What album/band are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?

Aidan: I’m back into Idles. Their Ultra Mono album and Joy as An Act Of Resistance. Also, I’ve been listening to Call Me If You Get Lost pretty regularly.

Carson: So much great music has come out in the last six months it’s hard to narrow it down, but here are a few: Call Me If You Get Lost, Chamber Johan, YOUSEE4YOURSELF

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

Aidan: I mean we wouldn’t be in this position without it. We all moved in together right before everything locked down and that was the best thing we could’ve done. We were mainly doing livestreams and TikTok, trying to be as interactive as possible. I’m trying to do what I would want to see from an artist I like, from a fan perspective. I think it’s really important to remember and to respect that.

Carson: It is so nice to be able to connect with people regardless of where they are in the world, so for me that’s so important. We have fans in Brazil, North America, Japan and Europe, so it’s cool that we can connect with them any day and just share what we are doing.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

Aidan: Thank you for listening and thank you for caring. We’re gonna keep doing our best.

Carson: Thank you for listening to our music. I never thought it would even make it out of our houses growing up and to have it be worldwide is absolutely crazy. This is only the beginning.