Q&A: “Play This At My Funeral,” Rocking Out With Triathalon
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SKYE SCHOENHOEFT ☆
Photo by Creigh Lyndon
INDIE BAND TRIATHALON — introduced their upcoming album Funeral Music with the February 18 release of their single “RIP.” Soaked in grunge and glittering with shoegaze levity, the song is a strong first step into the band’s latest music. The band shares with me that while “RIP” has a fresh take on Triathalon’s style, their newest work calls back to their roots. I spoke with bandmates Adam Intrator, Chad Chilton and Hunter Jayne about their process, their inspirations, and where the project is headed.
LUNA: How did Triathalon start? Where did you guys meet?
ADAM: We started as a little project in college my sophomore year. Recorded some songs with a friend who needed to do it for his sound design project. A band found us on Bandcamp and asked us to open a show. So we had to get a band together. We lied about being 21 to play this bar in Savannah, Georgia. Hunter saw the show, and was like, “Yo, if you ever need a guitarist, let me know.” And then I said, “This isn't even really a band yet. We just did this.”
LUNA: Where did you go to school?
ADAM: We went to SCAD in Savannah, Georgia. We started playing hella shows, hella house parties there. Then the city started asking us to play small little festivals, and we just kept going. It was really fun.
HUNTER: A lot of the support that we got from friends and the community in Savannah and in college definitely kept us active; having a good time with people and meeting a lot of bands, everything just kind of kept expanding. So once we were through school we stuck around there a bit, and just kept at it. Then eventually [we moved] to New York together.
LUNA: Recently, I dug in my old playlists and I found I have a ton of your earlier music saved. A fun “OMG I totally know these guys” moment. But I wanted to ask you about the recent shift in your sound, I know you from your more lo-fi stuff. How did your sound start? What caused your transition into what you're doing now?
ADAM: From the jump, we played with distorted guitars, rocking out back in college. As we grew we just tried different sounds. It was just natural as we got older. You go through a lot of awful sh*t as you go through life. Sometimes, that’s easier to express with distortion and heavier songs. We've always kind of been rocking out, but we went away from that to keep exploring. So to come back full circle is nice.
CHAD: Adam was speaking to how there are a lot of sounds in the project. We're very fortunate to be able to work together as long as we have. There's always a little bit of what we’re discovering in that moment that finds its way into the sound and influences it. We’ve always made releases sound very different. On this newer stuff we were writing songs and letting them happen. Adam was pushing for more of his sound. We realized Hunter has these abilities to build these chords that create these dissonant sounds, pulling from things he used to do a long time ago. We've kind of landed in this new place of a big, heavy sound, the guitars are chugging and you really feel the weight of it all, especially in the newest single.
HUNTER: Yeah, sometimes it's just having fun working on songs and being really comfortable with each other, where you have a moment when you make something half seriously, and then everyone else is like, “No, that's actually sick. We should do that.” It's about being comfortable with getting out of our comfort zones.
CHAD: It is funny how many moments I can think of where I thought “I'm just going to pitch the craziest thing, because then they'll not like it and we can move on,” and then everyone loves it. That’s the fun part of collaborating.
LUNA: What are you guys writing about and what are your current inspirations?
ADAM: We’re writing about moving forward, letting go of stuff. A lot of heartbreak. Also a big part of the process was allowing myself to get weird. A cool part of this record was that a lot of the vocals I experimented with alone in my room, where I could be super vulnerable. And then I was able to let that emotion go. I listen to a lot more music than I make music, so there are so many things probably affecting my personal headspace that I don't even realize, but my own emotions are my biggest influence.
HUNTER: I’m kind of the opposite of Adam, where when I'm in a record-making mode, I’m really specific on what I listen to, because I want to subconsciously edit out what's influencing me. On this record, I was very heavily into ‘60s bossa nova. You definitely don't hear it in the single that's out now, but I think it comes out in other parts of the record. With the kind of lyrics Adam was putting together, the vibes of the sadness, I thought of those guitar players' sound in that sentimental, sad accompaniment.
LUNA: On that note, are there any themes to the upcoming album, and are any of those themes recognized in the current single?
ADAM: The biggest theme is feeling empowered from going through a battle. Funeral music means “Play this at my funeral.” These are songs that I want everyone to hear after I'm dead. So it's that dark joking vibe that these songs are closing a chapter, but it's also about being vulnerable in a way where I think the theme is death, figuratively. You can piece it together lyrically. It’s pretty classic human emotion to be like, I went through something brutal, and now I'm moving on.
CHAD: We had talked about calling an album “funeral music” before, but we finally had the confidence to do it. Because something about that felt intense and jarring. Like Adam said, it was cool to play with the weight of that, and the imagery we could build. It’s the end of our own personal uncertainties, moving on from something.
ADAM: It's also ridiculous. I want people to say it out loud and think, “This is a ridiculous name.” I don’t want it to be taken seriously. But that's the fun of it for an album name. And there's definitely some songs on there that you can listen to and have maybe a flashback, picture yourself in the My Chemical Romance music video, you know, that kind of vibe. Do you know which one I'm talking about?
LUNA: I don't think I do.
ADAM: Damn, “Helena?”
CHAD: It's a funeral music video.
ADAM: Classic video.
Photo by Ellie Fallon
LUNA: How have you felt that audiences have received the single so far?
ADAM: It’s been amazing. The most meaningful part to me is when my family, cousins, homies I went to school with, random people start reaching out about the single and being excited, it makes me feel very proud of us. It’s hitting people I didn’t really think it would hit.
CHAD: I can relate to that because I was unsure how some of my family and close friends were going to react to some of the visual vibe of the subject matter because it felt more intense and less carefree than how we’ve packaged stuff in the past. But it was cool that people were not turned off by that but rather intrigued. It's also cool to see how the same people show up after all these years and no matter what it sounds like or what little different things we’re interested in. I don’t know these people but I just know whoever has the Luffy One Piece avatar on YouTube comments on every video and I just love it. It’s just cool that even after all these years, the project’s always evolving and it feels like you can always catch us doing something different.
LUNA: What are you guys most excited for coming up? What are you looking forward to?
CHAD: We’re kind of coming out of the gates with this newer sound and seeing if people are interested in that. But I think when people go and listen to the album there is a lot of depth and more of a Triathalon sensibility that you’ll find. We’ve been collaborating with really cool videographers and expanding the worldbuilding we’ve been doing. It was fun to just announce everything and follow up pretty quickly with the rest of the music.
ADAM: For me, the next single. That one hits really hard. I’m just excited to see what comes this year. Excited to let people marinate with the album and discover that it’s more than just a heavy rock song. Excited to get on the road and just start rocking out.
HUNTER: I’m really excited for the rest of the album to come out and to go support it on the road. I think this album is really cool. I think it’s the best place we’ve been in terms of our personal relationships with each other and learning how elevating and supporting each other just leads to really good things. And we ended up making an album that feels like a punctuation. Nothing was left open ended.
Triathalon's latest single, “DOWN,” is available now.
