POST SOCIAL 101: AN ORAL HISTORY-PART TWO

2. RECORDING THE ALBUM, ENTER SIV EARLEY, THE LACK OF COVER SONGS 

AND THEIR FAVORITE SONG TO PERFORM LIVE

What led to the idea of recording your first album?

BRENDAN: Well, I think it just seemed like the next step. We had more than enough material and the drive to do so, so why not?

SHANNON: We've always been super serious about recording our music. It seems like a lot of teenage bands don't think too seriously about albums in the sense that a really pro band would, but we've always wanted to put out music as much as possible. We like to do things ourselves as much as possible but when we wanted to record our album last year, we decided to go into a real studio.

MITCH: Recording an album for us was something we had kind of been doing (at home) for a while, but one day, I remember Shannon was telling me that he just googled studios and Ricky Reimer's Science Of Sound came up first. He showed me pictures and my immediate thoughts were: Okay, we're going to record an album for real now. When we went in, met Ricky and checked out SOS studios in person, we busted our asses to practice and write a bunch of new songs to make an album. ‘Cause at that point, we really, really, wanted to record.

The album was recorded pretty quickly. We finished all the instrumentals in about a weekend, and the vocals took longer, (Me and Shan were writing lyrics as the recording process was happening) but I think the most striking thing about the recording process to me, was the pure high that we all got from it. I remember the first night after laying down “Something In The Water,” and hearing it played back to us on Ricky's monitors, was just so much joy to us, because we hadn't ever heard our music at such good quality recording before. That will forever be a life highlight for me, and I assume the rest of the crew as well. To put it simply: it was euphoric.

Shannon, going back to “Change Your Mind” for a moment, I particularly loved your lead vocal on that track as it really worked as a counterpoint to Mitch’s primary lead vocals. Might you sing again on any future music?

SHANNON: Right now, I could potentially be singing on a lot of songs on or next album. The way I write takes a really long time, and Mitch tends to snatch up songs if I don't claim them for myself. So, we'll see. It all comes down to the way we write song sin general, which is always instrumental first. But, I'm definitely going to sing more on the next album though.

With all of the material that you have written, especially since the release of the first album, is Post Social averse to creating a double album? Or would that be too expensive for you to realize? 

BRENDAN: I can only speak for myself, but I would love to make a double album. We certainly have enough material, but there are things keeping us from doing that. One is, of course, our budget. Producing such an album would be twice as much time in the studio and much more money into the physical production of it, which we can't really afford. Another is that our favorite studio engineer, Ricky Reimer, has limited availability and may not have time in his schedule to fit that.

SHANNON: I don't think we are against the idea of a double album. We definitely have the material for it. What I can say is regardless of how long our next album is, we will continue to write and work ahead to another album.

MITCH: We haven't really talked about a double album yet, but I feel like we all like moving on to new projects and that's part of our writing new songs all the time, so it seems like we would prefer to release two separate albums one after another than a double album.

One of the elements that captured my attention tremendously on “Post Social” were the backing vocals of Siv Earley, who has since departed the band to attend college. Throughout, I found her to have this rather ghostly yet melodic effect over her contributions to the songs, and with each subsequent listen, I always find myself hanging onto her ethereal vocals.

Siv was actually the very first band member I reached out to for this project and in doing so, she was the first to answer questions that have since already been answered by Shannon, Brendan and Mitch. So, as of this time, I will allow Siv to give you her own musical background and history in her own words.

SIV EARLEY (former Post Social backing vocals, age 19): I think that my earliest musical memory is from when I was about 4. I have this very vivid memory of jumping around with my dad in the living room of our first apartment in Madison, listening to Sleater-Kinney. I'm pretty sure the album must have been “All Hands on the Bad One,” which was my very favorite for a long time. I worshiped them because they are such bad ass lady rockers.

I also listened to a lot of Blondie... I love Debbie Harry's voice because it's so pure and pretty, but she can also really belt things out and rock. I loved the Who and Queen and the Ramones in elementary school, but my very favorite song back then was (and kind of still is) "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" by Paul Simon. I have to give a special shout-out to teen queen Avril Lavigne, who inspired my first ever public performance in second grade. I performed her song "Complicated" at Mother Fool's coffee house during an open mic night. That was actually a really special performance for me because it was the first time I ever stood up in front of a bunch of strangers and sang on my own, and also because my Dad accompanied me on guitar, which was hugely comforting.

There wasn't really a specific point when realized I loved singing, it was just something I always did because it made me feel good. Although, I had horrible stage fright up until about junior year, when I started singing with a band from school. I took voice lessons from about fourth to eighth grade, but I wasn't a huge fan of them because the recitals were torture for me. I remember right before I was supposed to sing at my first recital, I had a panic attack and started crying and refused to go on... I ended up performing, but I hated it and felt incredibly nervous and uncomfortable the whole time. I think that this was because I felt like the people there didn't really want to listen to me, they were just there because their kids were performing. And even though I knew I had a nice voice and people generally enjoyed listening to me, that really bothered me. I guess this changed in high school because people started asking me to sing with them and I knew that when we performed, the people in the audience were there because they wanted to be... they weren't being forced to sit through a two hour long recital. That gave me a lot of confidence, and made me actually want to perform and enjoy performing.

How did you become involved with Post Social?

SIV: I started singing with Post Social about a year and a half ago. I went to school with all of them but we were in different grades, so we didn't see each other often. I worked with Brendan and one day he asked if I had any interest in singing with the band for Battle of the Bands at our high school. After that, they started invited me to more practices and Mitch had me learn more of the songs, and when they started getting gigs this past year, they wanted me to sing with them.

BRENDAN: Siv joined Post Social a little over a year ago when we heard her sing in our "rival band" A-Len and the Thundercocks at East High's Battle of the Bands. This is when we realized she has an incredible voice and Mitch proposed we ask her to sing with us. She was delighted when we finally did ask her (lucky us).

Now that Siv has departed the band and Madison for college, what do you think her influence was over your original band dynamic and music, live and in the studio, if any? How do you think that she affected Mitch's singing style, if at all?

BRENDAN: Siv was a very fluid addition to the band actually. By that, I mean she didn't change the dynamic of the band much in terms of writing. She only added parts that seemed as though they always should've been there. For our live show, she definitely did a fantastic job of smoothing out any rough spots we may have. She is very good at that. In the studio was where she was most influential I think. Her vocals added so much to the sound of our album as a whole and created an atmosphere that would've been desperately missed without her.

SHANNON: I think she helped bolster the vocals on the recordings of "Change Your Mind" and "Running On Fumes" especially. 

BRENDAN: I think Mitch just keeps on keeping on, really. He didn't do much asking the changing of lines when Siv joined, but that created a very ingesting dynamic of a quite loud, emotion packed vocal style paired with her very ethereal, pretty vocals.

MITCH: Siv was an amazing addition to the band and she instantly had a positive effect on the songs we were writing, my vocal lines, and our general sound overall. I love the low male octave and high female octave that bands like The National do, and Siv entering the scene made it possible to do that (like on "Something In The Water"). 

But also, Siv brought and unbelievable dynamic to PS that we hand't had before: Harmonies! If I wanted a harmony part, I'd simply show Siv the part, and being the natural that she is, she would find the perfect harmony line almost instantly.

We're all sad to see her go off to college, and to not have her on or next album, "Young Randolphs."

What are the most wonderful or difficult aspects of recording and live performances for you?

SHANNON: I always like hearing a song develop in the studio/experimenting with weird pedals and stuff. Mitch is using a lot of his old Ibanez chorus pedal on our new album and it's sounding great!

BRENDAN: Recording is an almost fully wonderful thing for us. We always seem so productive and are often happy with our results. It's a rewarding process to say the least, I can't complain. Live shows are where most of the difficulty lies in my eyes. I feel that we could improve on aspects like professionalism but it's almost always made up for by the amount of fun we have on stage.

Is it true that Post Social does not perform cover songs?

MITCH: It's not like an Post Social motto to not perform covers. We just have this history of always playing our own songs whenever we could, ‘cause the sort of norm at our age was to cover songs (back in Shrunken Heads/early PS era) so we wanted to stray from that. We've tried covers but usually never really get the drive to perfect them or do them justice. But, we did cover the song "Happy" last year, at High Noon Saloon's "Exile on Willy St." show, and that was a blast. So we're definitely not opposed.

BRENDAN: It is definitely not something we practice. We attempted to perform a satirical version of a Counting Crows song. It seemed we enjoyed that one more than the audience did. 

SHANNON: Contrary to popular belief, Post Social is very fond of covers. We have considered covering “Jailbreak” or “The Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy. I think the thing is that we’ve never needed to use covers to fill up space in our sets, so really when we do them, we’re just doing them for fun. We might even throw a cover on our next album. 

What is your favorite song to perform live and why?

SHANNON: I personally love playing our new song "Ohio" live. I get to use my delay pedal to do some math rock-y stutter effects. I also love to play "Days" from our first album, because it's a very easy song, it's a lot of fun to play and it gets me in this nice transcendental state of mind.

BRENDAN: My favorite song to perform has to be one created post-album, "Ohio." It has an intoxicating energy that doesn't get stale. If I had to choose one from the album, it would have to be "Something In The Water," also a complete blast with the second half of the song.

MITCH: Favorite song to perform live? Hands down, "Ohio"! It will be out on our new album and I think (though not certain) this might be a unanimous favorite within the band. Its energy, its melody, the beauty of all of our parts really hit hardest in this song for me, and it makes me euphoric every time our band plays it. Every other song we've had has been, at some point or another, boring or not fun to play for whatever reason. Not "Ohio" though. Never "Ohio."

Stay tuned for Part Three of this Oral History where the band gives us the scoop about their treasured friend and Bassist Sam Galligan, their favorite and least favorite musical trends, the pros and cons of being a working band in Madison and some choice final words.