Interviews: Aloha

Our love-to-hate-him contributer Jesse recently talked to Anthony Cavallario, the voice and guitar of indie-rockers Aloha over the course of several months via email. The two communicated between tours, floods and volcano eruptions to give us this interview. The duo discuss their new album, Some Echoes and how the band has changed with the addition of new members.
Read More for all that and more.

Some would say we do things the hard way in
the studio but for us playing together yields the best
results.

On the upcoming album, there seems to be a sort of old fashioned hymn-like influence, especially in the mellotron parts. It comes up in a lot of songs, especially in "Mountain." Can you elaborate on this?

I haven't thought of "Mountain" as a hymn, but I can understand that. It's drenched in distant organ and the lyrics sound like a group professing in the third person. I guess it's kind of a relentless, electric hymn. Somehow, I think this song and some others on "Some Echoes" are influenced as much by the old kinda psychadelic folk music that's resurfacing these days as it is from the prog rock and Krautrock we've been into for years. The music reflects the progish side and the songwriting representing the folkier side. But there's not an acoustic guitar to be found so your
readers are going to wonder what I'm talking about.

I guess the sort of hymn influence that I keep hearing is the organ parts, and I'm not sure if it's just because it's an organ, but the organ parts seem to me to be reminiscent of those old hymns that start a church service. Let's discuss prog. It's a word that's been tossed around a lot lately in the past three years, with bands like The Mars Volta and Coheed and Cambria coming up synonymously with the word, but Aloha's work has sort of been steeped in prog since the start, though it's not directly apparent. Do you feel a kinship with other bands that are waving the prog flag, or is prog-rock simply an influence that works its way into your work slightly?

I guess you could say it influences our music but
we're not trying to wave any banner. We rely on
musicianship to some degree but we don't strive to be
technical or macho. We're more into trying to make
music that's dense and ornate, and our tools are
mostly the same ones prog bands in the 60s and 70s
used.

This is your second album with multi-instrumentalist TJ Lipple. Is your songwriting process different now that he's a seasoned member? Was it different with the recording of Here Comes Everyone than with Sugar?

When we were writing HCE, T.J. was the new member and
yet he had huge responsibilities, first of all
deciding from all the intruments in the world what
would become Aloha's new sound pallete (like the
mellotron sounds and the marimba), as well as
essentially being our new producer. That's the major
difference with HCE, everything was new and we had
nothing to lose, because until that record came out,
Aloha had basically disappeared. So we were creating
something out of nothing. Or rather, ressurecting
something.

I don't remember too much about recording "Sugar." You
can probably tell a lot by listening to it. It doesn't
have the same sweetness and hope of "That's Your Fire"
or the generosity and empathy of "Here Comes Everyone"
but I think we were conflicted in the studio then and
we got a conflicted sound, a lot of nice stuff and a
lot of dissonance, but that has it's own merits.

Sugar does seem to have a slightly darker, more serious tone to it. What about Some Echoes? The album tends to be a bit keyed down from Here Comes Everyone until "Mountain," which seems to be a sort of rejoicing climax/conclusion to a darker album. Was the album constructed this way, or were these tendencies just a pattern that naturally occurred in the songwriting? Was "Mountain" written as the last track on purpose? Sort of a lot of questions thrown at you that are all focused around the same topic….

At first "Mountain" sounded like welcome music but later
it became clear that is was the exit theme. I like how
it's sounds like action, rather than ending on
reflection. It's sort of an anthem for outsiders of
all stripes.

What's your song writing process?

Hmmm. There are a few ways songs get written. Mostly
we just write when we're together playing music --
jamming, if you want to call it that. We all make
demos at home, some songs grow from there. Whenever
I'm stuck, Cale just plays crazy beats and I play
along until something clicks, and then Matth and TJ
take it from there. Everyone contributes.

When I saw Aloha play last year at the Abbey
Pub in Chicago, there was a lot of instrument
switching. Do you multi-track instruments on the
album or record it with the idea of being able to play
the song live with four people in mind?

We record live for the most part. Vocals and some
things are layered on, but we try to do as much live
as we can. Some would say we do things the hard way in
the studio but for us playing together yields the best
results. Some songs do get built track by track in the
studio, but not the majority.

Every genre has it's crossover artists,
and generally those who break through have a great
opportunity to influence the larger culture instead of
just hanging out in the scene that their comfortable
in.

Van Halen used to record all their albums live in
the studio. That's why there's not usually a rhythm
guitar backing a solo on the first few albums. What's
your take on the mainstream media giving indie rock
and punk more attention now?

Every few years there is this perception that punk and
underground music is becoming mainstream. The truth I
think is that every genre has it's crossover artists,
and generally those who break through have a great
opportunity to influence the larger culture instead of
just hanging out in the scene that their comfortable
in. But that doesn't always happen. I can say that the
this winter I was watching VH1 and Death Cab came on,
and no matter what you think of that, it blew all the
other stuff before it -- U2, Rob Thomas, etc.. -- out
of the water. I mean it's a step in the right
direction. Sometimes I'm elated that the underground
music scene is so well-established these days; other
times I'm sad that it's so far away from pop media,
that today's best artists are only reaching tens of
thousands of people instead of the whole of America,
which really needs some inspiration right now.

Do you feel like Aloha has that sort of
potential to ever cross
over or get picked up by the mainstream? Have you
ever set goals
like that for the band?

Who knows. Maybe any band can write a song that could
cross over. I think if you tried, you'd fail, but I at
least am still hanging on to the hope that music is
more powerful that the machines that promote it and
filter it.