Thursday, May 23, 2013
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Indy: The new CD, The Sun and the Moon, is fairly different from your first. You've scaled back on the dance beats and have more of a traditional pop sound. What led to the stylistic shift?
SE: We didn't want to just do the exact same thing again. When we made the first album, we intentionally made every song like a dance party super high-energy, really dance-y. We wanted it to be like that. With this one, it was like, we have all these different sides that we haven't explored a lot yet, so whatever comes out, we're just going to roll with it. We're not going to limit ourselves.
Indy: Brendan O'Brien produced The Sun and the Moon. He's known for working with straight-ahead rock acts like Bruce Springsteen and Velvet Revolver. Why did you choose him?
SE: He's really good with songwriting. He's like an editor. He doesn't write the songs, but he helps them flow. He has really good tastes, and he helps you tell, like, a story. He was really good with helping me as a singer and as a songwriter, like when I'm writing lyrics to really tell a story and speak from the heart. He helped a lot with that. And he's really good at getting the best performance out of an artist.
Indy: Both Bravery albums have lots of sonic bells and whistles. How does the music translate to a live setting?
SE: We look at recording and live as two different media. And the songs, we actually play them pretty differently live. In the studio, it's more about subtlety and layering. Our stuff is definitely fun to listen to on headphones, but live, we sacrifice some of that in return for just energy. Like, pure energy.
At Morrison's Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Sept. 30.
