Reclus-É - 2000 Trees Interview

Hello, my name is Soren. My name is Daniel. We both play in a band called Recluse, pronounced recluse. I'm to save confusion. I know, absolutely. It has got to, you, you've got to have something, a little full stop in there, but we're at 2000 trees and you guys are one of the, well, the new band of the week and everyone's fascinated. see you guys, as am I. Tell me about how all this came about. This is a new project for this year, I believe. But it must have been in the works longer than that. It has actually been a year, like we figured it out earlier that last year when I was here was the time that Soren had first sent me. Maybe 2 or 3 demos with vocals on and I was going around playing it to a bunch of people going, I think this might be the thing. I think, I think, I think I've got a new band and Soren's amazing and she smashed it. Um, so you were looking for a while, like not looking but you were like I'm open to. We're waiting for the right thing, right time. I guess so. I think the thing with any musician is that as you're always writing and you're always recording, you end up with just so much music and most of it will just never see the light of day, and that's fine. That's, it's a wasteful art songwriting. It is, but I feel, well, yes and no. Yeah, of course. But I, I also think like the more you do it. Hopefully the better you get at it. Yeah. So and it's fine because there's like I have hours and hours and hours of music that nobody will ever hear and that's probably for the better. And there are many paintings that no one has ever seen that that people only judge the one masterpiece and the other. Not worth as much for whatever reason. I think that's a wonderful thing. That's true enough, and I think that, but the thing with this is, I realised that as soon as I started writing it, that I wanted it to be something that would exist in the world outside of my studio at the end of my garden. And then as soon as Soren started sending me demos back because Soren's an engineer as well that works at a studio in Devon. Got you. So it was good that I could send music and and I think you said that you'd had a cancellation, a band had cancelled. Yeah, I basically had a day of work that got cancelled the very last minute and I was like, oh perfect, I can finally listen to Dan's music and try to write something for it. Happy accident, right? Sometimes something being cancelled is a good thing. And I just locked myself in the in the studio for the whole day and just wrote to the 1st 3 songs Dan had sent me because he only sent me a few at first. I don't know if you were afraid to show me everything. Because it was quite a new collaboration, so I know when you're kind of putting your toe in the water, making sure like, oh, are they going to understand me? Are they going to like reciprocate my feelings about music making and things it's quite scary when you start a new collaborative process, I think, but yeah, it just worked out really well. Sometimes starting it remotely is a good thing because it's a safety net. Yeah, you can kind of be in the safety of your own comfortable situation like you had your studio at the end of the garden. I was at work where I work a lot on a lot of different projects, so. And I'm fascinated by, you know, some, some people see an image and they hear music. You've heard music and you've thought of lyrics and a mood and a theme and I mean it's the collaboration that makes this a band, not a solo project, right? So what, what is going through your mind, cos I struggle with lyrics. I can play guitar, work things out by ear, lyrics have always been a struggle. What, what was going through your mind when you're hearing this music, you're like I want to put some art on this? Well, I guess. It was hard because I'm used to writing music first as well for my other projects so it was already a creative challenge to try to come into something that was basically a formed like idea and a structure already and everything and have to sort of impart my creative voice onto it um I guess I kind of just started with the songs that I gave me an initial feeling and then I just sat there and and I usually just leave it on loop the whole song and just keep like honestly I mean this is maybe kind of. Revealing something, but I tend to mumble through the first pass of a song. I'll just sing anything and uh yeah yeah that's the first time, the first time, and then not the whole like 20 times I loop it, but when you've got half an idea press and like I actually think words are so beautiful and the way that words fit into a structure is really beautiful and can be used not just like what the theme is but also just the way that the words sound if that makes sense. So I kind of approach songwriting also for tummy ache that way too where I'm like. The first pass through, I'm kind of just mumbling, and if I hear an interesting like word out of that, usually it'll just be like subconscious whatever's in the back of my mind I guess, but um then I can sort of like form a theme around that I guess, but it's never like an intentional like this is what the song is about. Sure. I well I was gonna say that I think that's really interesting that we've, we were talking earlier about the idea that art is something that very much moves through people and you have to kind of get out of the way a little bit. And I feel like doing, yeah, and as soon as you do that, that, that things will start to come through, I assume, I know that that's how it is for me, like often when I'm writing music, I'll start because this record was, I would have like a verse, and then all of a sudden, well I say all of a sudden it would be like 2 days later, I'd kind of sit back and go, huh, oh OK, that's the song and um. And I think that when you're writing words and melodies, things kind of come through. I would, I mean through my limited experience of doing that and and things kind of present themselves and that and that's how songs can suddenly grow out of like a phrase or something. Yeah, and I think that's, I like to think of it as a creative practise because. It's kind of everything that you do in your life plays into it and so when you're reading or consuming or I don't know consuming other art or reading books or watching TV even and like all these things inform your your view of the world right? and so when you go to sit down and create something it's all going into that and I like to think of it that way anyway yeah like it's it all informs each other in a way. And you've said one process there, but there will be countless songs that will over the time come around, there's no one way to write a song, there's no right way to do it. We've had a couple of releases. How, you know, you're playing however long you're playing today, how many songs are we talking that you've got finished at the moment? Well, there is a whole, yeah, there's a whole album. That's great to hear. Yeah, the album's done and dusted pretty much. There's a couple of little tweaks lyrics to in total is a batch of songs for for this project, you know what? Oh, I can't remember now. Is it? 1212, yeah, 12 I think I'm not sure, yeah, 11 or 12, yeah. What's your favourite song on the set today? On the set, I love Isolationist personally because it's the first song that we play that shows the other side of of Recluse, which is like the heavier side, the more like hardcore side, um, so I really like that the 1st 3 songs are very like I mean pretty for lack of a better word, and then we kick into the 4th song and everyone's like, what the heck? What is happening? Why are you screaming at us? How about you? favourite song on the set. I feel like, I feel like that's a, yeah, I feel like that is definitely a moment where it feels like it changes gear because there's, there's moments throughout the set, like, like the first song which is the single that we put out first, and Muted TV, that's the one which it kind of, that was the one which covered everything of what about, well, thereabouts of everything of what the record is and what the band is. Like it has like the, the kind of screamy hardcore moments and it has the melodic moments and blah blah blah, but um. Yeah, isolationist is definitely the one where it suddenly goes, this is like a really abrasive, very full-on in your face, and what it's discussing is very like, yeah, very political and very relevant, and it was also one of the first ones you sent me the demo for. Is it? That was one of the ones that I was playing to people here last year. Yeah, I guess the other choice would be the last song we play, which is called Belly of the Whale, just cos I really like the er music on that one. Absolutely. What's one bit of gear you guys couldn't live without to make recluse the band that it is, even if it's just the cheapest bit just to press record on or something, what's something you couldn't live? For me it's my Chase Bliss vocal effect pedal, probably yeah, I think that is an integral part of what at least gives me the chance to do something outside of just singing because it's hard. It was kind of hard the idea for me to not play an instrument, so I was like I'll use my voice as an instrument and I'll use my effects rig. Um, and so it's nice to have that element of it too, like, and it's nice because we don't need a new track or anything, so we're just like creating that live, that ambience live, which is really nice. Yeah, and you really, that really comes to the fore on the record because there's moments where songs like, yeah, bridge songs, but then also appear like there's moments where it kind of rears its head up in the middle of songs and then for it to cut out again, like it creates this really beautiful texture which is um. Which is cool because it, it's almo it sounds almost like synths and stuff but it's not, it's all Soren's voice and and vocal effects. But as far as pieces of gear for me, I don't know, I, I'm not, I'm not especially a gearhead if I'm honest. Like, like I love the bases I have. Fender Jazz, like Fender Jazz. Although I'm playing my AM Pro more than the AM Ultra. Um, I don't know why. I think it's probably just set up better and I'd like previously used it in another band and on tour, so I feel like it's more mine. Do you know what I mean? Um, uh, and then Ashdown was like I've gone back to Ashdown recently and they always looked after me back in the day, and I love their amps and and when we were rehearsing I was using something else and it just wasn't working out and then I just called Dan and was like, oh I'm really stuck and we've got some shows, and he was like, come to the, come to the place and he just like, it was, so yeah. And speaking of shows, what what what's happening from now, this is the new project, what, what have you, what are you willing to tell us? Well, I think, has it been Yeah. We're playing on the Deaf Tones show. Yeah, very, very humbled that's the next show, it's been really fun. Really nice experience, so I hope we can do it more. Today was our was our 4th ever gig, and we've been very lucky in the sense that a lot of friends have asked us to do, to do things that have been cool. Like the first show we did was with a perfect circle. Second shows with them as well, and then we did Outbreak a couple of weeks ago. So at the moment, because no one really knows what the band is, we're we're getting asked to do a like a few things that seem quite varied. I'm sure that might dry up. When they're like, oh no, it doesn't fit with this or it doesn't fit with that, but who knows, they're taking a chance on this which is really nice, yeah. Well I think that's all we've got time for, but thank you so much for speaking with us today and yeah, I can't wait to see more from you guys and hear the album, it's exciting. Recluse, check them out.