The Deep North, Boston based indie rock band, released their new album Sound & Light yesterday. Rebecca Frank (vocals), Nick Twohig (guitar and vocals), Dan Nakhoul (bass), and Nick Angelo (drums) walked us through each track on their new album and told us their experiences with them. Take a look below to find out the exclusive stories for their new album, and don’t forget to pick up a digital copy for yourself on their BandCamp page here.
Broken Clocks:
NA: I think the most interesting fact about this song is that it was written in the studio!
NT: Yeah… [laughs]. It was actually a pretty exciting experiment in songwriting for us. We’d never written an entire track in the studio before, and you can almost hear the excitement we were feeling in the parts.
RF: I think that excitement and urgency matches so well with the lyrics, too. They center around learning how to balance different aspects of life and feeling a general sense of time starting to get away from you.
Voices:
DN: “Voices” is the one song that really got me excited for the record – it really stood out in both a live setting and through the demo process.
NA: It was the first song we had written that really defined our direction for Sound & Light.
NT: For sure. I think this song was a real turning point for us. Our last EP had a mix of older and newer material, some of which had been written before the line-up was complete. The writing process for this album really started in earnest with this track.
RF: The bridge to this one ended up being one of my favorite moments on the entire album.
We Are Only Strangers:
RF: This song was definitely the hardest for me to get through, emotionally, but I’m really happy with how that translated to such a vulnerable vocal. I love the way the tension builds in the bridge, and you can feel that there is going to be something big around the corner.
NA: I think it’s the lengthiest song on the record. The ending definitely has that “wall-of-sound” feel, which we all felt was right.
NT: The strings at the end of this track slay me. There was a moment in the studio where I was completely overwhelmed listening to Jeremy Harman and Fung Chern Hwei [cellist and violinist, of the Sirius Quartet]. We were all just speechless. To go from writing a song in our dingy little practice space in Boston to watching these world class string players laying down their parts in a gorgeous studio…absolutely crazy.
DN: Agreed. Definitely gave me goose bumps listening back to it on the studio monitors for the first time. Listen to it with headphones!
When Morning Came:
RF: A few years ago, I spent an entire fall feeling like I was just going through the motions and avoiding the world. Looking back on those months, I realized that I had missed out on so much potential. This song sort of reflects on that period of time, and I’m really happy with how it came out.
DN: I remember this one coming together pretty organically. Instrumentally, we just all locked in with each other. After a few revisions of this one, we decided the original version was the best.
NA: Although, I will say that the drums changed pretty dramatically in this song once we started tracking. Our engineer Sonny [DiPerri], being a drummer himself, had a lot of good ideas. I took his advice and modified a lot of the beats to really open the song up and leave it more fluid.
My Witness Is The Empty Sky
NA: When we were tracking the end of “When Morning Came”, Nick kept playing that repeating guitar line, and we just kept adding layers until we ended up with an entire instrumental track.
NT: Right. We spent the entire two-week recording process living at the studio, which was a barn-style facility built next to a 17th century farmhouse in rural New Hampshire. I think this made us really focus on letting the outside world disappear while we concentrated on really losing ourselves in our surroundings. I think this track sort of represents the whole “letting go” aspect of Sound & Light.
Gemini:
RF: Lyrically, “Gemini” is sort of a sequel to a song from our first EP called “Wake Up”. “Gemini” is about not letting the past consume your present. The ending is so big and powerful – it’s one of my favorite parts to perform live. The strings at the end almost remind me of something from Bernard Hermann’s Psycho soundtrack — which is one of my favorite movies.
DN: This one has become my favorite song on the record, to both listen back to, and play live. Sonically and lyrically, “Gemini” really connects with me – just a very beautiful but dark and aggressive song. Another song great for headphone listening.
NA: I think we all felt, post-studio, that we’d like to write more songs like “Gemini.” It captures every band member’s musical influences in one song. I think we really pushed ourselves and our sound to create something new.
You Can’t Fight A Ghost:
NT: In the weeks before the studio, I had recorded a demo version that layered part over part to the point where we had this complex arrangement for a pretty ambitious album closer. Once we got to the studio, however, the notion of stripping away all the bells and whistles and leaving just the original guitar part, a new vocal, and a cello came up. I think this song taught us that sometimes simplicity can be the most powerful choice.
RF: Nick and I spent a few hours sitting outside the studio coming up with the new lyrics. Since they aren’t necessarily linked with actual events from my life, it almost makes it easier for anyone to bring their own story to the song. We ended up using a complete vocal take – the first full take where I didn’t mess up the words that I had just written – and I love that it’s not at all edited or pieced together. The cello is, once again, so beautiful. It makes for a really haunting end to the album.
DN: Just a simple, delicate, and haunting song. Sonny was really pushing Rebecca lyrically on this one. As she was sharing what would become the final draft of lyrics with Nick, I happened to be walking by and recall seeing a devastated look on Nick’s face. They called me over, played the new version for me, and I remember just sitting there for a few seconds dwelling on the words and melody. Really couldn’t have a better song to close the album with.
