By: Karen Steinberg
Q) How would you describe your sound?
Mat: This is one of the most common questions we get asked and one that we have the hardest time answering. To put it sort of poorly, it’s catchy pop music with interesting instruments and multi-part vocal harmonies. We use a lot of folk and world instruments in most of our songs – mandolins, banjos, bouzoukis, violins, djembes and kalimbas to name just a few – and a lot of the Raynes sound comes from those elements. Vocally, most of our songs employ at least three-part harmonies and often five or six or seven parts. The songs tend to be very hooky and “upbeat” and the lyrics tend to be not very upbeat at all.
Q) Who are some of your musical influences?
A) The Beach Boys, Coldplay, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, ABBA, James Horner, Tchaikovsky, Alabama, John Mayer
Q) I love that your upcoming EP Bloom has a double meaning to it. Where did your desire for a fresh start come from?
Mat: Our last EP, ‘49, was focused on confusion, guilt, frustration and emptiness, bordering on despair. It was a desert; there was little light and less rain. We used a lot of “spaghetti Western” sonic elements in order to convey that feeling of a vast emptiness. With Bloom, we wanted to grow a garden from that wasteland both lyrically and sonically (hence the chamber pop elements of pianos and accordions and string arrangements). ‘49 came from our shared frustration in following our dreams; Bloom comes from the hope that grew from that time in our lives.
Q) Talk to us about the idea behind your latest single “Your Mouth is a Garden.”
Mat: In the context of the “kitchen sink drama” themes of Bloom as a whole, this song is about reconciliation and reconnection. It’s arguably the lightest song on the EP, thematically speaking, and the idea was to convey that through the lyrics, of course, but also through the sort of sparkly, glittery, fizzy sounds that you can hear through most of the track.
Q) What kind of fan response have you been receiving to it?
Marc: We’ve been pretty blown away, to be honest. The three singles that we’ve released from the project have all outdone each other and became some of our top performing songs in such a short space of time. Not only has the online response been incredible, but the reaction to them live has been quite overwhelming in the best way. We played a sold-out show in Salt Lake City less than a week after “Your Mouth Is A Garden” was released and the ENTIRE crowd seemed to know every lyric.
Q) What is your song writing process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?
Joe: We sort of have two different methods of writing. Ideally, we like to all get in the same room together and just screw around on whatever instruments are available until something sticks. If we’re not all together, Mat has a hard drive of hundreds of sessions that he’s been developing for decades and will often finish a demo, send it to the rest of us, and get our input. Mat writes the lyrics for all our songs and only starts that process after basically everything else is done. The lyrics-first approach definitely works for some people but Mat thinks that can, as he puts it, “damage the melody,” and for us melody is king.
Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?
Mat: I produce all of our music. We’ve worked with a few producers on different things and are always open to outside collaboration, but doing all the music in-house allows us to have complete creative control and do exactly what we want.
Q) There is a lyric video out now for “Your Mouth is a Garden.” Are there plans to release a full video for the fans?
Marc: Not as it stands at the moment—but as always, our plans remain flexible and things could change!
Q) Is there a particular track on the EP that holds a special significance for you?
A) “Rainbow Baby.”
Q) Which new songs off Bloom are you looking forward to performing live?
Joe: It’s always very enjoyable learning how to re-create our new songs for the live experience. In particular, “Pulling Teeth” and “Your Mouth Is A Garden” have been a blast to perform live.
Q) What do you hope lingers with audiences that explore this EP – as a message or an emotion?
Mat: We don’t have a “message,” per se, other than “these are great songs and you should listen to them.” And to be honest, we’ve found that people tend to take what they need from every one of our songs and we love that. That’s how art works. We’re conveying a broad range of emotions on this EP, so we really just hope that the songs reach people and touch people.
Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?
Joe: We are just finishing up our first ever headline tour and it’s been full of amazing experiences. Every show and every place we have played has had its unique and beautiful moments so it’s really hard to choose a few favourites. If we had to, Salt Lake City has been a place that has stood out. We have been blown away both times we have played there with the crowd’s energy. Another place that is very close to our hearts is North Dakota. With two thirds of us being from there, it’s always a special show when we stop through.
Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?
A) We all probably have a slightly different answer for this:
Mark: John Mayer, Coldplay, Noah Kahan.
Mat: Kate Bush, Sabrina Carpenter, Burna Boy.
Joe: Bruno Mars.
Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?
A) Between the three of us, too many to count. Joe is always up on the new country music coming out, Mark tends to re-listen to John Mayer and a lot of musical theater, and Mat, for the past few weeks it has been listening through the works of Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. We just love music, full stop. There’s usually something to take away from a song in any genre, by any artist.
Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?
Mark: In the past couple years, especially, we’ve realized what a beautiful community is being built around our music and it is such an honor to be at the center of something like that. So, to any fans and supporters, we would just say: Thank you and we cannot exist without you. Chasing a dream in the music industry is notoriously difficult, but our fans have made it absolutely worth it.