Q&A: Larches Share Their Lockdown Musical Projects With ‘Attack of the Telephones’
IF YOU FEEL NOSTALGIC ABOUT THE BEATLES — then Larches is for you. With too much time on his hands, founding member and lead songwriter Jacob Cona decided to record an array of songs that later grew into the repertoire for his band, Larches, composed of co-members Adrian Franco on the drums, Robby Fox on lead guitar, and Jacob Conley on the bass.
Their discography kicked off in 2022 with the release of two singles, “Birthday” (perhaps a reference to The Beatles, whom Cona cites as one of his main influences) and “Best of Everything,” featured in their debut album, Attack of the Telephones.
While working on their next project, Cona found the time to answer some questions for Luna. Read below as he talks about the origins of the band, who influences his music, and what fans can expect in the near future.
LUNA: Who are Larches? How and when was this collaboration born?
CONA: Larches is a project that began during the COVID lockdown. I had way too much time on my hands, and I started spending a lot of it writing and recording songs. I began amassing a body of recordings, and as the number of recordings grew, they got better, and eventually I realized that I wanted to release an album. I whittled down the larger body of recordings to make Attack Of The Telephones. Since then, Adrian Franco (drums), Robby Fox (lead guitar), and Jacob Conley (bass) have joined me to perform live and write new songs together.
LUNA: How has your music changed within the past few years?
CONA: This is my first album, so I can't say that it is any different from previous releases. Though, my writing process has changed a lot in the past few years — [I’ve become] a lot less picky in the early stages of the writing process. I used to be obsessed with perfecting every detail of a song while I was working on it and developed a pretty severe decision paralysis. But that led me to leaving many songs unfinished, so now I tend to throw a lot of figurative spaghetti at the wall before addressing the finer details. I still have obsessive and picky traits, but they tend to come much later in the writing process.
LUNA: Who inspires your music? Who are your biggest influences?
CONA: I think The Beatles are my most significant influence. They were my earliest musical obsession, and their music has soundtracked a lot of my life. I relate Larches with the album Revolver, in particular. Revolver finds a balance between pop sensibility and otherworldliness, and I've tried to realize that balance in Attack Of The Telephones.
Another big influence of mine is Elliott Smith. His songs exist in a world of extremely complex internal and emotional landscapes. His music covers so much emotional ground, and he has helped me to explore the lyrical depth of my own songs. REM also belongs on this list. I was raised in Athens, Georgia (REM's hometown), so they were a part of my early musical life, but they have become even more important to me as I've gotten older. I think Michael Stipe, especially on REM's earlier albums, is pretty much the gold standard for lyrical abstraction. I love how their songs can mean so many different things to so many people.
LUNA: Could you introduce your favorite singles you've released so far?
CONA: “Birthday” is the first single we released off the album. Musically, it's a Beatles rip-off, and I think listeners can hear that in the guitar and vocal arrangements. The inspiration for the song came from trying to describe the awkward feeling that I get celebrating my birthday. I don't like the exaggerated attention that I receive, especially in social situations — that attention is overwhelming. To me it seems like birthdays are less for you and more for the people that celebrate with you. If you just wanted to watch your favorite movie or take a bath on your birthday, people would call you boring. The songs that we have about birthdays feel superficial and emotionally desolate. I think some people might relate with the awkward feelings that come with birthdays, but maybe I'm wrong. A lot of people enjoy their birthdays.
The second single from the album is “Best Of Everything.” It's the only acoustic song on the album and has probably my favorite guitar arrangement. A lot of singer-songwriter music is focused on internal emotions, and it can feel lonely a lot of the time. I think that this song is about a lot of things, but a big point is that, although we experience our inner issues alone, we are connected when we can share those feelings with the people we trust.
LUNA: How did you develop your style? Will you experiment with other genres in the future?
CONA: I love experimenting with all kinds of music, and the Larches songs were actually being written at the same time I was exploring songwriting in lots of different genres. I was writing industrial music, ambient experimental stuff, acoustic instrumentals, and joke songs (like an aggressive cover of “If You're Happy And You Know It”). Song ideas didn't start off the bat as Larches songs. If the song fit with the other Larches material, that would be revealed later in the process.
Lately, we've been writing songs as a band, which has been really rewarding. I get instant feedback whenever I have a shitty idea, and we surprisingly agree about most things. We're all pretty open-minded creatively, so when someone is adamant about a certain detail, I try to take that person's opinion seriously, and I feel like my bandmates do that for me too. It would be much more difficult if we were all close-minded about the direction of a song.
LUNA: Let's talk about Attack of the Telephones. What inspired the album, and how did it come to life?
CONA: Attack of the Telephones started as a personal recording project during COVID. I was writing a lot of different types of music but started amassing songs that fit well together. Almost all of the songs except the first and last on the album were written without knowing that they belonged together on the album. They fit together, but I think a listener can discern that there are a lot of different styles going on in the album.
When venues in Seattle reopened, I was overwhelmingly inspired from seeing live music again. I work as a sound engineer in Seattle, and working with so many live bands I got jealous of seeing all these musicians share their music while mine remained a project that I kept to myself. I wanted to share what I was making, and I got serious about arranging a proper album and releasing it. In terms of inspiration, I think it's undeniable that lockdown loneliness had a huge impact on the album. Compounded with the isolation of lockdown, I had recently moved away from my hometown, and it became apparent that almost all of my important relationships were being strained and were only maintained over the phone.
LUNA: Who produces your tracks? How do you choose which producers to work with? Do you have some dream producers you'd like to work with?
CONA: I produce all of the tracks. I guess that's a benefit of having an audio engineer in the band. I'm not sure if I would like anyone else to mix my music, but working with a producer is a different situation. I was working on Attack of the Telephones alone, but I asked for a lot of producer-type advice from close friends, musicians, and non-musicians.
I think it could be cool to work with a producer who understands the aesthetic better than I do, or at least from an outside perspective. In terms of dream producers, I really love what Joel Hamilton did on the Sparklehorse posthumous album. I think it's very apparent that he understood Mark Linkous' music and was able to capture his spirit on the album, even after Mark was dead.
LUNA: Is music your main occupation at the moment? How are you balancing your day job with your music career?
CONA: I am an audio engineer in Seattle. It works well for Larches because I get to learn from a lot of different musicians. I frequently get inspiration from work. Audio engineering has its own issues as a career path. It's not very lucrative on the level that I work, primarily local bands and smaller tours. I work as an engineer full-time, so I'm often working more than 40 hours a week to make ends meet. But I love my job, and I love working with musicians, so I don't feel like that time isn't spent well with regards to Larches.
LUNA: Have you ever been on tour? Would you like to embark on one?
CONA: Although we haven't been on tour, we have played outside of Seattle. I think it's a great way to meet people and check the pulse of what is going on in different cities. One of my favorite aspects of playing out of town is the downtime I get with the band. We all get along really well, so it's nice to do the little things with them. Eating food, playing games before bed, waking up together is really awesome and can be underappreciated. We're very lucky to all get along, otherwise I could see how these things would become tedious or awkward. We are currently booking a week-long Pacific Northwest tour in April 2024.
LUNA: Who's your dream feature?
CONA: I think this question is less pertinent to our type of music. I can't think of anyone in particular, but it has always been a dream of mine to work with a string ensemble. But it would also be very intimidating. Classical musicians know so much more than I ever will about theory and music history. It would be an amazing privilege, but I would be very anxious about my lack of experience, and I would try to prepare as much as I could leading up to something like that.
LUNA: Where do you see yourself in one year as a musician?
CONA: One year from now, I hope that we're done with the recordings for our next album. I would like to be playing more shows outside of Seattle and play a few festivals. We’re working on expanding our fan base, and I think it's more meaningful to do that in person instead of reaching people on streaming services and the internet. I'd also like to see Attack of the Telephones pressed to vinyl by that time. We're actually working on that right now, but pressing vinyl is proving to be a very long and tedious process.
