Twin Peaks - Free to Experiment

On the occasion of the first-ever Italian show by the Chicago rock'n'roll quintet, opening for Cage The Elephant at Fabrique in Milan, we met with Cadien Lake James and Colin Croom. Their answers reveal a band that's still having fun making music while growing ever more confident in its abilities and clear in its artistic vision.

Unfortunately, our site has never covered you before this interview, so we'd like to ask if you want to be the first to introduce yourselves.

Cadien – I'll just say that we're Twin Peaks, five friends from Chicago, we play rock'n'roll and right now we're in Milan…

You said you're five friends, but I read that you started out as four, and then the fifth one joined. How did that happen?

Cadien – Since we were younger, we'd always played with him, he's always been a good friend of ours, and two and a half years ago we were working on our second record and he helped us out as a sound engineer and playing a few things, it worked really well and that's how we decided to go about it.

How do the songs come together? Is there a main songwriter or do you write collectively?

Cadien – We're four different songwriters, we write songs almost entirely on our own and then we bring them to the table and work on them together and finish them that way.

Listening to the record, I find the sound less jagged, with more detail and more instruments. You've already mentioned that one of the reasons is having a fifth permanent member with you, but feel free to add anything else about that.

Cadien – Yes, I think a lot of it is also down to having had enough time.

Colin – We recorded the album in a freer atmosphere, we were staying at a friend's house and the recording sessions lasted about four weeks in total, and it was also a quiet spot in Massachusetts, so there wasn't much else to do, which meant we were really focused on what we needed to do. We had the chance to experiment, create, expand.

Without any kind of countdown or deadline.

Colin – Yeah, it wasn't costing us any money, so we told ourselves we had to keep pushing, we really wanted to get to where we ended up.

Cadien – We really got to play what we wanted, experiment with the tracks, and that's a great thing. We were able to create a fuller sound.

I really like what you did with the harmonies, I can hear a lot of beautiful harmonies on the record, it seems like you focused on that aspect more than on your previous records.

Cadien – Yeah, we've got four different voices, so we try to use them as much as we can, we'd put harmonies everywhere if we could, but we're not the Beach Boys, so we can't do that. It's fun and it's a good way to improve, and people appreciate it.

You said you're not the Beach Boys, but I think you can hear atmospheres on the record that recall the West Coast. The jangly guitars remind me of the Byrds, or, talking about current bands, the Allah-Las, who I'm a huge fan of.

Colin – We like that production style and we listen to a lot of records like that, so that's probably why our sound is influenced by them.

Cadien – That kind of production carries more quality with it and makes the sound warmer.

And were you on the same wavelength as the people who helped you produce the record? I read that some friends collaborated with you on it.

Colin – Yes, our friend Andrew Humphrey worked with us, he's also worked with bands like Dinosaur Jr. or Kurt Vile.

Those are sounds pretty different from yours, Kurt Vile might be more or less related, but Dinosaur Jr. are really different.

Cadien – Yeah, but he immediately got what we wanted to do.

Colin – Plus he's also a nice guy, he kept calling us "stoned hippies" the whole time.

Cadien – Which isn't entirely true, it's only half true.

I have two favorite songs on the record, so I'll ask you to tell me about either one of your choice or both, they're "You Don't" and "Holding Roses".

Cadien – "You Don't" is one of my favorites, it's got something unique about it.

Colin – Yes, like the metal fan we used as percussion, brushing it.

Cadien – There's a ton of stuff we used as percussion on that song, even bottles and glasses. Anyway, I think it's a good song.

Colin – As for "Holding Roses", we basically recorded it live and then added a few things afterwards, like the piano.

Cadien – We took a simple idea, stuck with it, and built things up around it.

What would you say about your lyrics?

Colin – I don't think our lyrics are conceptual, we're five young guys from Chicago and we sing about that. A lot of the songs are about girls.

Cadien – Yeah, I think we haven't yet found a way to say something different, from a more mature point of view, but I think that's just another step in the growing process, and we'll try to find our own way of putting things. In the past, you'd write lyrics and, as long as they sounded good, that was fine, but now we try to put more thought into them, and we want to focus on that too, in order to grow.

Colin – When you're young, you pay more attention to the music.

Cadien – It's also about having more experiences and reinterpreting them.

Tonight you'll be playing in Italy for the first time. If you were to come back, what can we expect from your shows?

Cadien – A ton of energy, I think we work like a well-oiled machine, and we bring the rock.

Colin – We're not the kind of band that stands still on stage, we certainly don't travel just to stand still while we play.

The last question is about the Our First 100 Days project, which you're part of. Regarding Donald Trump, there are people who, before he was elected, thought he wouldn't actually do everything he said, but he is really doing it.

Cadien – Yes, he is, so I think a project like this is important. It's great for us to be part of something like this, we're in a situation where we need to help provide a platform that makes our voice representative of those who are disappointed. Artists need to take a step forward, because politicians haven't been able to, so now people need to do their best to stay united. It's a small part, but it means a lot to us to be able to contribute.

Colin – We started our tour three days before he officially started, so we're sorry to be abroad and represented by him, he shouldn't represent us.

I've read that the songs are meant to bring a kind of social awareness to the listener, but are these songs that have already been released, or is everyone writing a song specifically for the project?

Cadien – I have to admit I don't know, we haven't thought about it yet, we're on tour right now so we haven't had a chance to work on it, but when we get back it'll be one of the things we need to tackle, and whatever comes out of it, we'll be happy to make our voice heard.

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