On a New Collision

© Dan Watkins

Upon first inspection Boston band New Collisions may sound a lot like your run of the mill retro-pop-indie-punk-rockers. Discovered by Greg Hawkes (of The Cars) and having toured with the B-52s and Blondie, New Collisions captures that sound of an era past. But one listen to the lyrics on their debut LP The Optimist lead to suggest a whole different story. Kicking off with the single Dying Alone, the album examines the bleak landscape surrounding the lost and depressed ‘Everyman’ American. Songwriter/guitarist Scott Guild and lead singer Sarah Guild recently sat down to tell me a bit about the experience and ideas that inspired this oddly uplifting account of our darkest fears. 

So you just released your debut LP The Optimist. Tell me a little about the process of creating it.

Scott: Well we worked with the producers Paul Coldrie and Sean Slade, who are producer heroes of ours because they had done a lot with the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. and Radiohead, so they were producers we knew about since we were in our teens. Getting to work with them was like a dream come true because they don’t collaborate very often anymore. I think that the last thing they did together was Dresden Dolls or Amanda Palmer. Anyway it was a very quick process, really, we practiced a lot before heading in there and we would send them demos and they would run the songs so the actual recording of it was mostly live and then a few over-dubs here and there. It just went really quickly. 

Sarah: They were really attentive in the pre production phase as well. They went through the song structures and made sure everything was good to go.

How long did it take you to prep for the album? Writing your songs, et cetera.

Scott: Oh wow well there was a lot of touring. The way it happened was that as soon as our band started we were touring a lot. There were songs that we would write on the road and then they would get worked in. So I guess all told those songs represent about seven months of writing and performing. One of the songs The Shadow was the first rock song I ever wrote. 
 
So you guys were discovered by Greg Hawkes and have toured with Blondie and the B52s. Do you feel as if your musical style pulls from this era?

Scott: There are definite parallels. Especially when we first started there was the idea of being a new wave project. But now when I listen to us I hear sixties New York and late seventies and we’re just sort of following our own influences. When we first began we did want to create this sort of retro sound so yeah that is where we started.

Sarah: We don’t want to give Greg the credit or dis-credit for discovering us just in case things go sour. But yeah he was in the Boston area and we invited him to one of our shows and he was really into it. We wanted to collaborate with him so he came along on our debut show. He was definitely our hero at the time. And our synth player is modeled on him.

Scott: When we were looking for a synth player he was the model of what the best can be. Our new album is 90% organ now, which is another direction. 

Do you feel it is important to try out new and different sounds each time?

Scott: I don’t know, we’ve only been together about a year, we haven't had time for experimentation yet. It was sort of like, the band started, we wrote some songs, and then played live a lot. And then we made an album and now our new album sounds very different to us.

Are you creating new songs now?

Scott: Oh yeah, we intend to go back into the studio in a couple of months or so. 

Sarah: We have something out early next year.

Any plans to set out touring again soon?

Scott: I think we are going to do a shorter tour in September and then a longer tour in October and then an even longer tour in November.

All touring all the time?

Scott: Well it is all in the works now. And there is a decent chance that we will be going out with this guy Bruno Mars, he’s a pop singer who wrote a bunch of singles this year so we are going to try to do a bunch of dates with him in November. 

So do you feel a huge difference between when you guys first started a year ago to now?

Sarah: You feel the solidification of what we’ve done. And with the live shows, I just love it. I love every minute of it. And the interaction is key.

So live performance is a big part of what you do.

Scott: Oh yeah that is what we love. If all we could do is tour for the rest of our lives that would make us all very happy. Unfortunately you have to go make albums and all that other stuff! No but I love making albums too… we just got back from touring and being on stages and playing to people and we got all that energy back so that is what it is really all about. This is the first band we’ve had. When you are first writing songs you are a little tentative about it…

Sarah: …what if people hate it? What if they don’t like what you are doing?

Scott: Right. So with The Optimist I feel like we are a little bit more willing to do a lot of songs, I mean, the lead single on this is called Dying Alone. So we are definitely a little less scared of what people will think. To make an album that is very negative and then call it The Optimist. There are a lot of contradictions there that we are very comfortable with; it is pop music with negative lyrics. We tried to make it really weird.

The album is a narration of a bleak modern society. Did you feel like you were telling a story?

Scott: Well I think that the way we approached it, because Alex- our bassist- and myself wrote the songs, it is just sort of about living in a city in America at this sort of point in American history. The economy is failing and a lot of people our age are adrift and don’t know what they are doing and don’t have a lot of focus. A lot of the choices they make in their lives are huge compromises but they don’t know what else to do. So I think that a lot of that negativity affects us, but we are in a band and we are making music and we are having a lot of fun, so the two colliding creates this tension. And this is how we sort of created the songs. But then when we wrote it too, we wanted to write in the voices of these characters.  

Is it a linear story for you?

Sarah: Hmm, we never thought about it that way! When we picked the songs it was more about how each of them fit together musically one song to the next so…huh….

Scott: I feel like scene-wise, I mean maybe. It begins with Dying Alone, which is just like despair modernised. And then it ends with this affirmation of finding your own purpose, even if it is in a way that upsets everyone around you. 

Sarah: I think the songs in the middle fit in the middle. 

Scott: But it isn't like a dramatic narrative that is clear-cut like, oh, and then he got a job at CVS! It isn’t like the Who’s TOMMY or anything, but it is built around a specific idea that we had in our heads when we were writing it. If I were to reference it to one album I would say Aurthur by the Kinks. Because that doesn’t tell a crystal clear story, but it has themes. It is more of like a concept album.

Who are some of your modern influences? 

Scott: Well we love The National. I don’t know if they are a direct influence, but we love it. 

Sarah: We love to listen to the new album. 

Scott: Maybe we are influenced by them, the power pop… what else do we like? I mean I get excited when Bob Dylan puts out a new album even if it is a Christmas album. 

Sarah: I guess we like the new MGMT a bit.

Scott: Gaslight Anthem is great. We listen to our own albums over and over because if there is something we would have liked to have fixed we have to punish ourselves with it over and over. So there's that. It is almost taboo to mention it but I sort of like Passion Pit too. They did this great Cranberries cover and they did Tonight, Tonight. Arcade Fire… (laughs) I guess it sounds like we are just picking all the biggest indie bands! In any case they aren’t influences but they are contemporaries we admire. But our favorite music is really from the sixties and seventies.

So it has been a short but busy ride since you started. Any favorite moments?

Sarah: Being on the stage is such a rush. And everything you do is for that brief rush. We practice all the time, we put in the grueling hours so we can have that reward. 

Scott: You ave to practice a lot so you can just roll around on stage when you get up there. For me the whole thing is amazing. This is really the dream of our lives. You write the music and you get to perform it and you get the reactions from people, it is the kind of thing that is so hard to do too in this day and age. The biggest rush is creating something complicated as a band and then getting to execute it and have people love it, it is just phenomenal.