TC: What was your production philosophy for the record? Was there an overarching ambience you wanted to create?
AS: Honestly this record was not really produced. This is pretty much just how we sound in a room. The band tracks are completely live and we did that in a day. The string stuff we did another day. Sammy wrote the string arrangements on his computer and we practiced it like once. I was looking to throw something very human and problematic at a cold and calculated digi environment. That's kind of what the music is about too.
TC: How did you go about designing the sonic world to showcase your lyrical content? Is there a relationship between the lyrical content of an individual song and your production choices for that song?
AS: Yea it's good to always be very suspicious of reality haha. I try not to control lyrics and sounds too much. I like to say less and less but be open to more.
In the summer, I work these big outdoor corporate audio gigs for yuppies and then I go work or hang out/play in diy after. They always have on top indie playlists. Sometimes people I know from the night world come on the speakers and it's like looking at your social life through a plate of glass. It's a sweltering 90+ degrees outside and it smells like craft IPA and artisanal bratwurst. Some startup dude with a fascist haircut is bugging you for a submix for his podcast and if you stood on a roof you'd see condos being built in all directions. It's funny how any content can be wallpaper for urban development. Any music can soundtrack economic violence lol. Also anything can be good too. Also anything can mean nothing and just be a paycheck. I love New York. You really get to see it all go down. I love music in the same way too. This isn't really what my record is about by the way but it's just something that is true about my environment.
TC: How did you record the album? Why did you choose to record in that way? Do you think your recording decisions helped bring a certain style to the final product?
AS: Last year we played mostly weird spots in NYC and the northeast, a lot of noise shows, mostly basements. We learned to play the room and isolate extremely because of how bad it sounds. Also I want my voice to sound really really clear like a voiceover, even in a packed environment. So everything else gets muted dynamically and alien sounding, but we play super hard inside of that. You can hear Paco's guitar strings in the room, sometimes more than the amp, and they often break several times a show. Once I turned around and realized everyone's volume was off completely, but you could hear their fingers just smashing and scraping the instruments. So when we recorded, these kinds of things got microphones.
TC: Do you feel satisfied with the project? Did you gain any new creative inspiration for future work while producing this record?
AS: Yea I'm happy with the work but I don't feel like "End of The Game" anymore. Time and place. Expect new songs, expect new feelings. I demo everything, a lot of old ones will be up as bonus tracks for this record. I have 277 voice memos of unfinished songs right now and about 30 on deck in my dome at all times. Sometimes it's fun to let them be forgotten, especially if I like them. We'll see what makes it through.
TC: What’s your plan for the future with this project? Any upcoming shows? Another record?
AS: Yea, we just got back from Eyes of Love/The Cradle tour which we did last year as well. All those shows were great. I loved playing with Jeff Johnson's Ghost in Salad on a couple of those. We're doing a release show in Brooklyn with some acts I like: Alice Cohen, 973 Future Yook, Signal & Jack Whitescarver. I'm going to California right after to do a solo run with Banny Grove and Harmony Tividad.
