Hailing from Saint Louis, Missouri, Spectator’s new single ‘Waves’ recalls the best of Richard Hawley and US peer, Damien Jurado. Jason Barnard speaks to the duo about their journey and forthcoming album ‘Charlie Baby’.
Thanks for taking the time to speak to me. I was hugely impressed with the gorgeous simplicity of your new single ‘Waves’ – what inspired it, was it a relationship?
Hey thank you so much. We really love how Waves came together. It was one of those songs that seemed to almost write itself. It started as one of our more personal songs and kind of a love letter to each other. For us, it’s about the push and pull of a relationship.
Would you introduce yourselves – how did you meet and form Spectator?
The core of Spectator is the two of us – Megan Rooney and Jeff Albert. We’re a married couple, and we met about 13 years ago through a mutual friend. We were both musicians on our own before we met, but as we played our songs for each other, we slowly started blending our ideas and writing together. We went into the studio before we had a band or finished any songs, and that gave us the kick we needed to get moving and pretty quickly we were on our way with our first EP, In the Brick. Spectator formed during that recording process.
What generally inspires you to write, do you start with a musical phrase or lyric?
We usually start with a guitar or vocal melody. Jeff will be noodling on the guitar or Meg will have a vocal melody in her head and we’ll then build it out on guitar, piecing it together as we go. We veto ideas until we both agree on where the song should go. A lot of the lyrics start as a melodic line and then turn into words that fit the music.
What artists, past and present do you admire – as a songwriter and performer?
As performers, we’re always impressed by artists who can draw you in with minimal “performance”. When we forget where we are or what time it is watching an artist simply play their songs, that’s impressive to us, and something we aspire to. Simplicity. The Walkmen did it for us. Hamilton Leithauser does now. Beach House, Damien Jurado, Cotton Jones, Angel Olsen. These same artists are some of our favorite current songwriters.
What should listeners expect to hear from your new album ‘Charlie, Baby’?
We hope they hear a nice evolution from our previous album. We feel that the songs are still living very much in the same space as our previous stuff, but also that we’re continuing to refine our sound.
Who have you collaborated with on ‘Charlie, Baby’?
On our last 2 records, we co-produced with our engineer and good friend, Wil Reeves at his studio Centro Cellar in Columbia, MO. This time we had a dedicated producer, Kevin Bachmann, who also played bass and a ton of other instruments on the record. We recorded at Native Sound in Saint Louis and the team there – Ben Majchrzak and David Beeman – engineered and were great to work with.
Does your music evolve in the studio or do you have a fixed idea on how your songs should sound before you record?
Well, more of the former on our first records, and more of the latter on this record. We used to tinker in the studio for hours on end writing and rewriting. But this time we wanted to get in and out more quickly…so we wrote, demoed, arranged, and planned instrumentation before entering the studio and boy does it save time…! We arranged and rehearsed with Kevin on bass and Mike Schurk on drums so that we were able to record a lot of the record live, rather than piecing things together as we tended to do in the past. So on this record, we only completely re-recorded ONE song, whereas on our previous albums we had multiple versions of almost every song…
Can you talk about the music you’ve already released including any highlights along the way?
Each album has been an interesting journey. Releasing In the Brick was cool because we went from just some ideas and no plan to a band with an EP getting a lot of local attention in Saint Louis within just a couple of years. The Last Exchange was interesting because we started it while living in Saint Louis, finished it remotely after moving to Oakland, CA, and then spent a lot of time traveling back and forth for shows. After putting it out we signed on to Nordic Records in Norway and released it in Scandinavia. We’re working with them to release this record throughout Europe as well.
What are your plans for 2019 – what would you like to achieve?
We’re excited to get back to focusing on our live shows, but also doing side projects related to the album. We just finished up an album announcement video, and plan to do videos for some of the tracks as we release them. We have a multimedia idea for the final track on the record because of its cinematic feel. We’re really focused on getting our music out there and in front of people, and see what comes from that.
‘Charlie Baby’ is released on 12 April. For more information visit: spectatormusic.com
