Skyhaven – Liftoff

By starrymag | March 26, 2020

By: Matthew Pepe

 

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

 

Jake: That’s one of the hardest questions that we get! The easiest way to put it is “electronic rock/pop” – yet we pull from so many genres, from R&B to metal. So, that’s always a tough one to get a solid answer on. Yet I would describe our sound as modern pop/R&B with a focus on guitar.

 

Q) How has it evolved since “Liftoff?”

 

Jake: Our sound has completely flipped since we released liftoff. We were all still learning how to be in a band when we released that EP. With the upcoming record, we can safely say that this was the sound we always wanted to have. We just wanted to make music that WE wanted to listen to. Pulling from all of our favorite influences, working with some of our favorite artists. It’s really exciting and we’re really excited to start releasing music again.

 

Q) How would you describe your creative and writing process?

 

Jake: It’s pretty streamlined at this point! Everything we do is in the box – no amps, no real drums. The only thing we use microphones on is vocals. Therefore, it makes it SUPER easy for us to make music on the go. Generally, one of us will have a rough idea and we’ll bounce guitar ideas back and forth. Then, I [Jake] will wrap up all the production and electronic aspects of the track!

 

Q) How is that and the general vibe of the team different now that you are working as a duo instead of a group?

 

Jake: We love it. We have always seen eye to eye on genre preferences, the style of what we want to make, and most importantly, we’re best friends. It’s an absolute blast working on music with someone that you can be real with, not worrying about stepping on any toes or hurting anyone’s feelings. It’s an absolute blast!

 

Q) Would you say you prefer collaborating with a vocalist or writing instrumentals? Why?

 

Jake: I think we can both say that we prefer to collaborate with vocalists. There are a couple songs on the record that we build ground up FROM the vocals. All we had was a vocal track and then we built a song around that. That’s one of our favorite ways to write. Also, the fact that there’s now lyrics to sing along with makes the tracks a lot more accessible. We really do love the songs that we’ve been able to make for this record.

  

Q) What was the inspiration for “DRUGLUST?”

 

Dominic: We really based the titling and the aesthetic off of all of the concept art we made for this record. We knew what we wanted it to look like, just not so much what we wanted to call it. Jake does a lot of 3D rendering and graphic work so that made it super fun for us to just start bouncing aesthetics off of each other for what we wanted the look to be. “Druglust” came from the repeated use of reaching hands, faces of longing and references to euphoria, pills, etc. throughout our album art and music videos.

 

Q) Do you have a favorite track off your upcoming album?

 

Jake: I think we can both safely say that we’re extremely excited for a track called “Trouble” with a certain featured vocalist. It feels like the exact sound we were going for and we loved the vocalist that we had featured on that track! We can’t wait to get it out

 

Q) How did you decide that “U DO” would be the lead track off of your album?

 

Jake: “U Do” was another one of those songs that really encapsulated the sound that we were going for. We had a total blast filming that video (shot by Austin Beery) and we also felt that the aesthetic of that video would be a wonderful precursor for what’s to come!

  

Q) Will you be touring again in the US in the near term?

 

Jake: There’s nothing currently on the books, but we absolutely plan on touring in the US very, very soon. We haven’t been out for over a year and we can’t wait to get out again and share all of this new music with you.

 

Q) What do you hope your fans take away from your music?

 

Jake: One thing that we’ve really focused on for this record is trying to break genre boundaries. We really hope that we can inspire musicians out there listening and we hope that we can have non-musical fans really relate to the sound and what our vocalists and ourselves are trying to get across through the lyrics and musical aspects. The whole record touches on different parts of toxicity from people in your life. That’s something that means a lot for us, and something that we want to speak on.

 

Q) What is your favorite moment from one of your live performances?

 

Jake: There’s one moment that I remember in specific in Philadelphia. It was Halloween night, everyone was dressed up. It was the loudest crowd, the most crowd interaction, the nicest people and the most energy we’ve ever seen from a show. The place was packed, it was a holiday and the fans were deafening. That’s absolutely something that I will never forget.

 

Q) If I took a peek at your music collection, who would I be surprised to see in it?

 

Dominic: For both of us, I think we can both say that we have some pretty obscure music tastes. Both of our defaults are extremely heavy metal bands, which is pretty funny being that we make pop music. For Jake, I think some pretty surprising ones would be Chelsea Grin, Whitechapel and Polaris. For me, I’d say that my more surprising ones are Ghost, Ghostemane and Erra.

 

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

 

Jake: We really can’t even thank everyone that’s ever listened to one of our songs or supported us enough. We’re really living our dreams and it’s only going to get better from here. We can’t wait to share our new music with you. It’s the best stuff that we’ve ever made and we’re really excited for you to hear it!

 

 

All Questions Answered By Guitarists Jake Johnston and Dominic Jadrich