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Decibel first interacted with then-new Chicago noise rockers Latter about a year ago, when they released their debut album, My Body is My Sickness. The honest, expressive lyrics and relentless, discordant music instantly made Latter a band to be aware of. Their follow up, new EP What Lives Inside of Me, refines that sound into four sharp tracks.
The EP is out now for listening but Decibel caught up with the band, guitarist/vocalist Meredith Haines and drummer Jonathan Alvarado to discuss the new EP, having backgrounds in other genres of music and more.
Meredith, you were pretty much ready to quit music until you and Jon realized you had something going on. Is that how the band became more serious?
Yeah, before we started Latter I had thought I was never going to play music again. I had played in a lot of bands in Philly but then we started playing music together and it was really fun. It was like, “OK, I guess I’m not done playing music like I thought I was.
What do you think it is that changed and made it worth staying in music for you?
J: For me, it felt very natural. It just felt pretty good to me and it felt like we could really make something, we had a good mindset for a creative journey together.
M: Definitely.
The subject matter that you deal with on these records is very personal and goes into topics not easy to talk about with strangers. For either of you, playing these songs and addressing things like relationships and chronic illness, has it been helpful to heal?
M: I write all of the lyrics and for me this has always been an outlet where I can talk about this stuff and it makes it easier to live with.
These songs are pretty personal and you decided to keep playing music because of this band, but then you hit some pretty large listener milestones and have been able to tour and put out music [in a short period of time]. Do you feel any pressure to keep hitting these milestones?
M: I feel pressure sometimes but I try not to think about it too much. I feel like a lot of that pressure is pressure that I put on myself because I think with those milestones, they’re always going to fluctuate. I feel like a lot of the pressure’s inside my mind.
J: I don’t feel the pressure from any outside sources but pressuring ourselves to do more and to do better. There’s no one expecting that much; it’s kind of just us, but it feels nice. It’s just us motivating ourselves to do more.
As much as the standards we put on ourselves can be grueling and unreasonable at times, they’re still better than feeling like you have to hit a date or number because a label said to.
What does it look for you guys when you write music?
M: We just jam. It’s really organic; we’ll just get in a room together and start playing music and then we’ll record it and be like, “OK, that’s the song.” We’ll start jamming and then we’ll have an idea and we’ll structure it out. It starts with a jam session and then we’ll keep refining until the song is where we want it to be at.
J: It’s just that. We do as much as we can structurally and think about little things we can add in the studio, but by the time we get in the studio, the instruments and the structure are pretty much there so we can kind of build from that. That’s a part of where it comes from, being so natural. We don’t have to attempt to write at home and record things at home and send to each other. With us, it’s very whatever we happen to do at that moment, at that time, if we like it, we expand on it and go from there.
Being a band with not a huge number of members comes with its own set of challenges but I’m sure it makes the writing process a little more streamlined.
M: It’s nice. We don’t have multiple different people, because we’re the only two people who write together in the band. There’s really no competing ideas or anything like that. It’s really kind of just whatever happens between the two of us is what the songs will be.
Other than having a noise rock background, [Meredith] has done some noise and sound collage work, and Jon, your other music does not sound like Latter. Do you think that playing with those projects affects how you approach the writing and composition of those songs?
M: Definitely. I feel like I approach, having the noise rock and noise background, Latter in the same way too, experimentally and creatively. I’ll just try things and see if they work, and if they do, cool.
I definitely feel like having that noise background adds a lot to the project.
J: I’d say same for the other stuff I’ve done. Everything I’ve been in—emo bands, bands in high school, my pop group. I think it all helps. I think doing stuff with Latter even helps my other band, having stuff to experiment with on drums or little things we did in Latter structurally.
You just put out the new EP, What Lives Inside of Me, last week. Will you work with this record for a while or are you already thinking about the next release will be like?
M: I think both. We are going to go on a tour to promote it and we’re going to do a bunch of out-of-town dates over the next few months but I’m really excited to start writing again. I’m looking at our material that we kind of have shelved and thinking about the next record, because I want to do a full-length album for the next one. I’m definitely thinking about that and excited to get back to writing again, because that’s where the joy is really at. I feel like promoting things on the internet is not my favorite part of being in the band.
J: I think we’re really amped up to play music and record more and write more. I feel like the songs are, now with this EP and the previous record, now we have a full set so now we have more songs to switch out and things like that. It’s just going to make things more fun, having more things out there, having more songs out there.
We just keep going, like a train.
Latter are currently on tour.
8/18 Davenport, IA
8/19 Kansas City, MO
8/20 Wichita, KS
8/23 Denver, CO
9/9 Detroit, MI
9/10 Toronto, ON
9/12 New York, NY
9/13 Boston, MA
9/14 Providence, RI
9/15 Philadelphia, PA
9/17 Washington, DC
9/18 Charlotte, NC
9/19 Atlanta, GA
9/20 Nashville, TN
9/25 Chicago, IL
The post Interview: Noise Rock Duo Latter Discuss New EP, What Lives Inside of Me appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
