photo courtesy Sean Moore
So tell me about what the process has been like in bringing Signs of Potential Life to life. I started planning this idea of a record I guess in my first year of college when I was up at FSU, but it didn't start coming to fruition until about summer of 2003 when I started compiling a few songs for this record and it took about three and a half years on and off. Were you involved in any bands before this? I was in two bands before, a Christian-alternative band in my high school years called Entourage, and in the summer of 2001 I formed a band called Rapid Transition. We compiled a record and I self-released it in 2004. Two of the guys in that band I'm in another band with now called Pardon My Carbon. Toward the end of high school, I started listening to records with a more critical ear, and when I got to college, I was completely blown away by Pet Sounds. I was always a Brian Wilson aficionado when I was a little boy and I always loved the Beach Boys. I remember thinking when I was about 7 or 8, "Man, I want to do that!" Those intricate textures that the Beach Boys used on Pet Sounds made me want to explore that. It turned into a record for Rapid Transition and it also spawned the start of Signs of Potential Life. Speaking of the textures and such of Pet Sounds, what kind of instrumentation did you use to create the sounds in your album? As far as instrumentation goes on this record, the main instrument I'm using is an acoustic guitar, so there's a lot of finger picking and folk undertones. Also [there's] a bit of electric guitar, bass guitar, violin, piano, glockenspiel, synthesizers, ukulele, trumpet, a little bit of beat boxing. Nice variety. Yeah, I also do a bit of sampling. I'm kinda my own drummer on the record. There's lots of percussion. Not really set playing, but kind of the percussion that can be found in Pet Sounds or Smile - not really that full set but just pieces of the set. Did you use any programs like Reason for the percussion? No actually, a bunch of my friends use Reason, but I would eventually really like to dive into that. As far as sampling, I do like real time sampling. I mostly use Cake Walk Sonar. Yeah, but a lot of the percussion is real. I use some percussion with my mouth when I can't afford the time to go over my friend's house to borrow a drum or two, or if I'm just too lazy, I guess So what other inspirations do you draw from, and what kind of themes are present in the album that you've taken from them? One of my main inspirations came right when I was capping off this record. I had the privilege of experiencing Scott Walker's The Drift. It's absolutely terrifying. He's everywhere I want to be at any point in my life. If I could ever get to that point that would be amazing. He's creating these textures, and almost atmospheric kind of songs - more than just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. Ever since I heard it last year, I've been like, obsessed. It's absolutely astounding, like nothing else for sure. He releases one record about every 10-11 years, but when I heard the time he took and the struggle that he had to come up with his music was kind of how I felt with this record. It [Signs of Potential Life] is a mood piece for sure. It does have a sense of desperation about it - not that "all hope is lost" or anything, but I just encompassed this warm feel for each of the ten songs, and that's what took the three and a half years. It was recorded rather sporadically - I kinda let the feelings come to me. But yeah, the second track, "Coughing in the Clouds"- that song's written about my father. He came down with brain cancer, so that came in the midst of recording this record. It was a hard blow because he was a big musical force in my life. He was the one that said, "You will go to your violin lesson." I started playing violin when I was like, five, and I went in kicking and screaming. I didn't really understand what I was doing or what he was doing for me. Him and my mom made a lot of sacrifices for my brother and I. I'm really glad he gave me that push while he was around. I bet the making this album was healing for you as well. Yeah it really was. I really feel this burden or weight or whatever you want to call it has most certainly been lifted. I mean, regardless of whether people respond positively to it or not, I just am relived beyond words, you know? It's a very serious record. But, I mean, there are some moments of humor. Like in "Coughing in the Clouds", I actually cough in the song. I had this awful cold, so yeah, that was pretty real and painful. There's a lot of sarcasm in the record too, but if I point the finger at anybody, I often point it at myself. It's really at no one specifically. There's a three part song called "A Triumph of Failure." It's about accepting failure, but at the same time you step back and don't progress at all. By reducing the 'tremor dial,' (that's what sparks creativity in everybody, while we pile up to the side) we just relinquish whatever flame we have inside of us. I think everyone can be guilty of this, and I most certainly can too. I like being sarcastic. I don't really care if I offend anybody, but I think it's an interesting way to play of those feelings. "Poetic Signals for Fruitless Laborers," track nine, is about kind of a mayday, almost like an SOS of sorts. It's about poet who's completely dried up and can't write, so he hires ghostwriters to build rhyme schemes for him. Artistically speaking, when anybody's ever creating something, it's easy when you're lacking inspiration or lacking the drive to just say "Okay, I'm completely tapped out, I'll never be good ever again." But it's a mind game. One day I can feel completely artistically fulfilled, and the next day I'm like, "What am I doing again?" I can definitely relate, being a musician myself. Were you going to school for music? I originally went to FSU for violin performance on a full scholarship, but after two years I decided I didn't really want to be stuck in a practice room all the time, so I moved on to a straight BA in music. They also had a commercial music program and a studio we worked in. My senior project was to make an album, so some of these songs were actually made for that. It was never finished until now, of course. So were these songs actually recorded in that studio? Actually, no. It was all recorded with one microphone in either a dorm room, my apartment room up in Tallahassee, or at my mom's house in Longwood. I learned a lot just recording with one microphone. You're pretty restricted at times, but I welcome those kinds of challenges. It's fun to attempt to do so much with seemingly so little. Do you think it gave the album a more intimate sound? Absolutely. Recording with one microphone, technically speaking, captures too much of a certain frequency, so I had to do a lot of post correction, EQing and that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't have done this record any other way. I think a lot of groups and a lot of artists today, I don't know... There's too much gloss going around. And it's seeping into indie music as well. Yeah, I can really appreciate simple basement style recordings like Daniel Johnston has done. Yeah. I love him. He is a beautiful person. Listening to his music, it's so pure. The fact that he just decided he was gonna make a record on his cassette tape recorder is the best decision he ever made. But it's getting easier and easier to tell who's being real and who's not. The more you listen seriously, it's easier to pick out the fakers, and he's most certainly not a faker. Definitely. He's really amazing. So are you planning on touring soon? Well, The Heathens are going to be doing a tour around spring break. I think it's the second or third week in March... I'm a schoolteacher so I think I still have to take off for some of it... But Dodger, Mumpsy, and myself, we're doing a "Three bands in one Van" tour in mid-May. I'm also in Dodger and The Heathens, so for my CD release party next week, Jeff Ilgenfritz is drumming, I'm on guitar, Matt Kamm's doing back-up vocals, Conrad Winslow playing piano, and Jason Joyner from Pardon My Carbon's playing bass. It's cool because the whole band's almost there already, but it's hard finding time to rehearse. It gets exhausting, but it's all worth it at the end of the day. But I've been so busy with teaching and the CD release party I haven't planned really anything else after that except for a few dates on that tour. But hopefully April will open up for a solo show. So after the dust settles a bit, do you think you’ll continue working on solo music or will you just contribute to Dodger and The Heathens? I'm already starting to think of songs, but I'm trying to stop myself right now because I'm trying to focus on the show. Usually when I pick up a guitar I either write for myself or Pardon My Carbon. I usually just end up contributing to Dodger and The Heathens, but I'm starting to write new songs. I'm really excited about them, actually. They're a little bit more dissonant than this record. I don't really know what kind of feel they'll posses. I'm reading a great Phillip K. Dick book right now called Flow My Tears The Policeman Said, and I'm writing a song about him. It's kind of like a lullaby. He's had bouts with paranoia and it actually ended up killing him in a way. And to clarify, your CD is released on February 20th, correct? Yes, and the CD can be found on Itunes, EMusic, CDBaby, and www.post-records.com. Matt Kamm from Dodger did the artwork- it looks steller. And the CD release party is on the 22nd at Backbooth, 9pm, five dollars to get in. The Signs of Potential Life release party on February 22nd will feature performances by Sean Moore, Mumpsy, Fall Apart Machine, Matt Kamm (of Dodger), Matt Butcher (of The Heathens), and Conrad Winslow (of Dodger). MORE INFO: Sean's Myspace, Post Records
Interview by Alisha Torrealba