Simple Minded words for the Hard Headed

SAINTSENECA INTERVIEW!

11/25/11

Interview with Zac (lead singer) of SAINTSENECA

How long have you guys been together?

Various incarnations of Saintseneca have been together for about 4 years now

Are you guys touring right now?(If so), What is your favorite place to play? Both crowd wise and venue wise.

We just got back from tour, we made our way to the east coast this time, since we were out west in August.
Hmmm very hard to say what our favorite city to play is. Kind of a non-answer, but there are different things that make each great. Personally, as far as venues go, I like to play old houses with hardwood floors. I like the stomp and the resonance.

Were you guys all friends prior to the formation of the band or was there a search for members?

We definitely were friends prior to forming the band, and that is also the case for every incarnation it has taken. Steva, Luke, and I were friends since early childhood. We were always in bands together. 
Grace we met in college when she joined us.bRichard, Maryn, and Steve (not Steva) are friends we made through playing music.

I’m always really psyched when I see bands release multiple albums over the years instead of just riding out the glory of the first one. Do you guys continuously write and weed out the keepers, or spontaneously write when it comes time to record?

We are always writing new songs and tweaking existing songs as they manifest live. There have been quite a few songs that we’ve written, played for a while, and then let go, but I think it is important to have solid documentation of everything. All the songs get recorded in some capacity, though not everything gets released.

I have to say, I love “Last”, both the song and the album as a whole. How have things changed since the release of your first full length album?

thanks for the compliments! I guess things have changed pretty dramatically in the sense that we’ve undergone some line-up changes. Luke, Grace, Steva, and I are the original members of Saintseneca. Luke is now married, and Grace moved to NYC to pursue her career ambitions. They no longer play in Saintseneca. Steva and I continue in the band. We’ve played with couple different line-ups already which have included combinations of our friends Maryn, Richard, Steve, and Adrian.

Another change is that we have more time to tour, up until now we’ve been in college, and that has been priority #1.Now we are really investing our energy into this project.

Maybe I’m digging to deep, but it definitely seems like this album as opposed to the last two E.P.’s  has a deeper feeling to the songs. Was there any event that brought this feeling to the new record? 

I don’t know that there is a single event. But the culmination of a lot of changes for all of us. For one we’re maturing as people and musicians, I think that the music reflects that.

The aforementioned changes were no surprise.(question 5) At least for me, the impending changes on the horizon instilled a sense of urgency in the record. We wanted to make something that would in some way encapsulate the investment of friendship we all have in this. The record is a memento. Last as end, and endure. The band is by no means over, but we’ve definitely opened up to a new chapter.

I was psyched on the reproduction of the songs from both E.P.’s , did you re-record the songs or did you guys leave it alone?

Re-recording those songs has a lot to do with the whole idea of the record. Those older songs were among the first we ever wrote together. It was a deliberate choice to include old and new songs because we wanted the record to span the entire breadth of our existence as a band.

Now on I think your first self titled E.P. there was a song entitled “Water to Wine”, was this originally intended to be a cover of “99 Red Balloons” or do those words have other meaning to you?

“Water to Wine” isn’t a direct cover of 99 red balloons. I did borrow the words and melody for the first and last phrases, the rest I wrote. The song “99 Red Balloons” is about the apocalypse, though it is translated from German. I liked the idea of including doom in a love song.

If you could picture yourselves living anywhere where would it be?

Somewhere with better weather that Ohio.

And finally, what’s in the future for you guys?

We plan to keep touring, keep writing, and keep releasing music. 

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