Most recently dividing their time between touring with Cold War Kids and hanging out at SXSW, Chicago’s A Lull finally had a moment to bask in the glory of their hard work with the release of their newest full-length, Confetti. Hitting the public on April 12th, Confetti is the bands debut in the world of full-lengths, following their two previous EPs.
A Lull stems from the ongoing musical collaboration between longtime friends Nigel Dennis and Todd Miller. Fast-forward to 2008 when the two began writing with Mike Brown and eventually were joined by Aaron Vincel and Ashwin Deepankar, and you have A Lull as Chicago knows and loves them today.
Any attempt to explain the sound, or really sounds, A Lull creates would be in vain. This is a band that layers things so richly, explores so many ways of making music and incorporates so many sensory allures that they truly are a band you just have to hear for yourself. Dizzyingly bright and hypnotic, Carnival is no exception to the curious collective style A Lull has honed in their short time as a unit. If you’re going to go out on a limb and blindly taste one morsel of music this week, we hope it will be A Lull’s latest. And should you be as hooked by it as we expect you to be, you can join the band for their record release show tomorrow, April 22nd at Schubas where they’ll be sharing the stage with Yourself and the Air and Heypenny. Show starts at 10pm, is 18+ and will cost you $8adv/$10 at the door.
Watch A Lull on Vimeo
Last week A Lull bassist Todd Miller talked with Reviewsic about musical influences, making Confetti and what comes next for this extraordinary band.
Reviewsic: What are your top three musical influences?
Todd Miller: The band has so many musical influences. We all listen to so many different styles of music that it’s pretty hard to quantify the top three. Hip-hop and R&B are big influences for me. We all listen to the music that our parents listened to while we were growing up. In our teens we all listened to a lot of pop punk music and elements of that music even sometimes finds its way into some of the music that we write.
Reviewsic: Are there any instruments/sounds you haven’t incorporated into an A Lull record, but would like to use someday?
Todd Miller: In the recording of Confetti, and the songs that we wrote leading up to it, we pretty much used every single thing that we could get our hands on. If it was laying around our practice space, we used it and if we could afford it, we bought it. We’ll basically try anything and if it fits we’ll keep it. If it doesn’t, we’ll toss it. As for what we would like to use that we haven’t already, it would be cool to get our hands on some different types of drums. We could do a lot with some tympani drums, maybe a steel drum too.
Reviewsic: What are the last three albums or bands you listened to?
Todd Miller: The last three bands/artists and albums that I listened to were: Drake – Thank Me Later; Big K.R.I.T. – ReturnOf4Eva; The Weeknd -House of Balloons
Reviewsic: If you could work with one person in the music industry (musician, label, producer etc), who would it be and why?
Todd Miller: Kanye West. I would love to make beats for him and I’d love for him to produce our music. It would be symbiotic. I’ve been a big fan of his for a long time. Whether you love, hate or ignore his eccentricities, he is a masterful MC, producer and performer. Also, we could share stories about hanging out at River Oaks Mall in Calumet City.
Reviewsic: What do you think the top 3 worst songs to get stuck in your head are?
Todd Miller: “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” – Rupert Holmes, “Oye Como Va” – Santana, “Who Let The Dogs Out?” – Baha Men
Reviewsic: Lately we’ve been on this kick of revisiting bands we didn’t pay as much attention to in the past and wondering, “Why didn’t I listen to this 10 years ago?”- If you could go back in time and push 3 bands/records on your younger self, who/what would they be and why?
Todd Miller: I never really listened to Public Enemy when their records were coming out, so I guess I’d go back and listen to them. I was pretty young in the late ’80s and early ’90s, so my parents probably wouldn’t have approved anyway. But I wouldn’t have had to go back and become familiar with them like I did. When I was in high school, listening to punk and hardcore music, I couldn’t relate with the people who listened to Grateful Dead. I just assumed it was hippie garbage and didn’t give it a chance. Since then I’ve become more open-minded and have learned to like them. Lastly, I just got some Lynyrd Skynyrd records the other day. I knew the singles and stuff, but I’d never listened to the records through. So, I did that just because I never thought to do it before.
Reviewsic: Tell us about Confetti- What was the writing process behind this record like? Did you set out with the specific plan for what the record would be or did it form in the studio? Is there anything you think is important for first time listeners to know going into the record?
Todd Miller: When we started recording for Confetti, we still weren’t sure what the thing was exactly going to sound like. So, we just tried a bunch of different things. I think we ended up writing 70 or 80 songs and partial song ideas when we were writing for the record. At first, we were using a lot of acoustic guitars and by the end of it, the guitars that we still in the songs were almost all electric, if they were there at all. The music got louder and it hit harder when we were really getting into our stride, but I think we were finally just writing with confidence. After two years, we finally knew what we were doing and we knew how we wanted the songs to sound like when we were done with them. We just got into a zone and when it had taken us a year and a half to write half of the songs, it only took six months for the other half. Hopefully we’ll be able to just continue with that momentum into writing whatever comes next.
Reviewsic: How would you compare yourselves as musicians at the point of this release as opposed to when you first began playing together?
Todd Miller: I think that we have all broadened our horizons and opened up the possibilities for what we can or should sound like. Where before, I think we kind of wrote like the final result needed to be like something that we already had in our heads, now I think we are better with letting something take shape and if it’s good, it’s good, weather it sounds like what we thought it was going to sound like or not.
Reviewsic: What are some of your favorite cities/venues to play? Any places you haven’t gotten to that you’re dying to play at?
Todd Miller: We love to play in Chicago. It’s the best. Out of town, Vancouver, BC was great. We played at the Vogue Theatre and I think it was a mix of a really great crowd, an awesome space and great sound. For whatever reason, we haven’t played in California yet. I’m really looking forward to playing in San Francisco, and we definitely want to get to Europe very soon.
Reviewsic: What are the best and worst band moments so far in your career?
Todd Miller: The first show on the Cold War Kids tour, in Portland, was one of the best moments of being a band. It was surreal. The venue was so big and there were so many people, it really was kind of an out of body experience. The worst are the exact opposites, when you pull into Charleston, WV, and play in a bar on a Sunday night that is so empty that the even the bartender goes outside to smoke, leaving zero people watching us, it is very hard to get excited about being there right then. But, that’s not to say that we regret any of it. Every band has to get through those shows and we’re just a little bit tougher because of it. We wouldn’t be ready for the good if we hadn’t made it through the bad, so we’re thankful for all of it.
Reviewsic: What are your plans for your music in the next year?
Todd Miller: Confetti finally comes out officially in just a couple of days, so we’re just going to see what happens with that. We are playing a record release show at Schubas on April 22, and we hope to have a lot of fun there. We plan on being out on the road a lot more as the year moves along and we’re getting antsy to start recording again, so there will also be new music coming later in the year as well.
Tags: Chicago, Local Music, New Music, recent release, Schubas, Upcoming Shows
