Catch up with Graveyard Lovers' Zach Reynolds and listen to the Brooklyn rock trio's latest single, "Told A Lie", taken from their upcoming two part album, Past The Forest Of The Fruitless Thoughts, Part 1 to be released in June.
What got you interested in starting a band together?
Zach Reynolds: Well, it's funny. Tricia and I were a couple and I was dabbling with playing with other musicians when I first moved to New York but it wasn't really working out. Tricia had been playing for about five years but I just didn't know how serious she was about it and she had drummer friends and a drum teacher - she'd been going to class for it - but she's a really quiet, shy person, and she didn't mention it much so, when I was playing with other musicians, she was secretly jealous and didn't let onto that until about a year into our relationship when we kind of had it out about it and she divulged all these things and she wanted to play with me so I was like, 'okay, shit, I had no idea,' [laughs] so we started playing together and it just immediately worked. I had had trouble keeping a drummer with whatever project I had going on and clicking with musicians and she was right in front of me the whole time, so it was good. We started writing songs immediately.
Where does your name, Graveyard Lovers, come from?
At the time when we were jamming a lot, we were really into blues music. I was really homesick at the time for Louisiana and I had never really liked blues music growing up - it was kind of old school music - but I got into it once I got up here and was buying a bunch of blues records and stuff. So "Graveyard Love" was an old song and graveyard love was a term that was used back then to mean a relationship that was destined to end in homicide - like, a really passionate relationship. We just thought that was a cool definition and basis for the name; it's funny.
Which musicians have you been influenced by?
As a group, we all have different interests, which you can definitely hear if you pick it apart. Individually, when we first started out, I was really into Mark Knopfler, the guitar player, so I think you can hear that on our first albums; I was experimenting with that type of stuff and classic rock stuff, trying to do bluesy riffs which didn't sound cheesy. Tricia really wanted to pound the drums; she's into loud '80s rock and stuff [laughs] as far as playing influences. We listen to all kinds of stuff. Also, on top of that, I'm really into '90s indie rock and stuff like Modest Mouse and bands like that so I always try to mix the two and do almost classic rock mixed with newer indie rock. With the new album, Joel is into a whole more diverse range of music than we are with a lot of heavier music and more experimental, some post rock stuff and hard core bands, stuff like that. We're trying to throw it all into the pot and see what happens.
What words would you use to describe your sound?
It's always tough. I start naming bands usually. We're almost like - someone once said - we're a mix between The Pixies, The White Stripes, and The Clash is in there, for sure. I always just say we're a rock band, because that's actually kind of unique now. When someone asks I say, 'we're rock'; it's open-ended, but no one says that anymore and I think we are actually staying true to that. We have a big '90s aesthetic, so I'll tell people we're kind of like '90s indie rock/'90s grunge, but it's a really hard question because there's thousands of genres now.
What were your inspirations behind your single "Told A Lie"?
I think I was dealing with this idea that everyone feels like they need to be famous to be special nowadays. This quest for people to notice you and the idea that you have to do something huge in your life to be validated, to validate your existence, I think there's a lot of just weird, new age memes going around that are all about following your dreams and doing epic shit and everything and it really, really just started to get to me because, it's obviously influenced by the times, but I think we don't put enough importance on people who are doing super important small things and you don't have to do epic shit to be important or validated and our desires are excessive and, inevitably, they're going to cause pain and suffering later on down the road if you want so much and think you're entitled to have the world. So, that's kind of the basis for that.
Could you tell us what we can expect to hear from your upcoming album, parts 1 and 2?
It is a full album, but we're just releasing it as two EPs and I have a feeling it'll come back together online as one full album within the next year, after the EPs are released, because I'd like it to be one album, but this is just a way for us to get more out of it throughout the year. It's definitely a bigger sound - bigger as there's more instruments and more complicated parts because it's not just Tricia and I. It's more involved and we've got this really awesome, complex bass throughout the whole thing because Joel is an amazing bass player. In sound, I would compare it to almost '90s grunge meets Interpol, so we're definitely influenced by grunge - we were going back and listening to all of our favorite records from when we were kids during the making of it and stuff, so it's cool. It's more involved. It's deeper. The first EP's going to be the more upbeat, happier songs and the second one, in the Fall, is all the darker stuff and it's split about half and half.
Could you sum up the album in one sentence?
That's hard, I don't know if I could. I would not not know what to say in one sentence about the album... It's a rock and roll album, that's all I know [laughs].
What do you hope your listeners and fans are able to take away from your music?
I hope they get out of it the same thing I get out of a good record which is just being inspired for a little while: a week while I'm listening to it over and over or whatever. If it can inspire you to just feel enthusiastic for a little while, that's enough for me. I think that that's music's purpose; that's what I get out of it so if it achieves that, I'm happy.