A RETURN TO OUR ROOTS
A CONVERSATION WITH ERIC CANNATA OF YOUNG THE GIANT
Since breaking out with their fantastic eponymous debut album, which featured the smash hits “Cough Syrup” and “My Body,” Young The Giant has proved time and time again that they are one of the premier indie rock bands working today. Their sixth full-length album and Fearless Records debut, Victory Garden, is no exception and is one of their best albums to date. Ahead of the upcoming album, I chatted with Young The Giant guitarist Eric Cannata.
“We sonically wanted to capture the energy of all five of us together,” he shares. “A lot of tracks were recorded live. We worked with a producer named Brendan O’Brien, who is just this incredible producer, especially with bands in the way that he captures the energy of multiple people playing at once in a room… It is a little bit of a return to our roots because it is probably the closest to how we recorded our first record, but just five albums later.”
Victory Garden was written during retreats in Joshua Tree and Idyllwild. “Everyone in the band except for me right now have young children, and we all have busy schedules, and we have a shared studio space here in L.A., which we would try to go there and write together, and it was proving to be a bit difficult,” Cannata recalls. “There was so much life kind of distracting us from really getting into the zone together… Joshua Tree and Idyllwild were just far enough from where we all live that we could do about a week writing retreat each and really zone in together, have no distractions, reconnect as friends, and just make and write a record together that felt really collaborative and joyful.”
For Victory Garden, Young The Giant placed heavy emphasis on songwriting. “Songwriting wise we really tried to be in the moment and as intuitive and possible,” Cannata says. “We really tried to push our songwriting and just tried to write the best songs we possibly could, but also tried some experimentation in the studio.”
Although Cannata tells me the upcoming album is not as experimental as previous releases, there are still many instances in which the band plays around with sonics. One example is “This Too Shall Pass.” “The guitar part that you hear at the beginning and throughout the track is this really weird harmonizer effect – that sound is a guitar, and I am hitting two notes together, but it is like this harmonized delay.” The song also features a NASA audio recording. “There is a big database of audio that NASA released – that particular sample perked our ears up when we were in the studio initially writing it. It is finding yourself in orbit. That is just the idea or feeling it gave us. Being alive is so wild. Existence is just unbelievable. The idea that we are just floating on this rock, flying through space. It is like finally finding yourself in that ‘Aha’ moment of self-awareness.”
One of the standout songs on the album is “Evergreen,” with highlights including the beautiful chorus and breathtaking vocal harmonies during the bridge. “It was the last writing retreat we did, and we were out in Joshua Tree, out in the desert, and before going, we felt like we almost had an album, but we were missing a couple of things,” Cannata recalls. “I personally felt like something with grandeur or something Queen-esque was missing in the sense that I didn’t think we had anything on the record that had a section in it that was really unexpected… When it got time to write that bridge, that was a bit of a conscious decision to do something that felt really exciting to us. We made the bridge, wrote the song, and then in the studio, we were experimenting with Brendan on cutting out all the instrumentation and keeping the vocal harmonies. As we were recording with Brendan, because this was the first record that we have worked with him, we were kind of learning how to work with each other. As we went about halfway through doing the record with him, something he realized that we could do is that Sameer [Gadhia], myself, and Francois [Comtois] can get in a room together and harmonize and sing all together – there are moments where we would all be in the room together, everyone in the band and sometimes even Brendan, and we’d harmonize and stack vocals.”
PURCHASE VICTORY GARDEN VIA FEARLESS RECORDS
With “Mona Lisa,” Young The Giant wanted to craft a song with a nice groove. “It felt fairly simple in its inception when we were first writing it – the rhythm guitar kind of jangly simple E and A very simple cowboy chords and this drum groove,” Cannata says. “I was searching for a guitar part, and everyone at the same time was like, ‘Let’s try the Motown stabs with the spring reverb – those chirps. Let’s try that. It seems to be asking for that.’ The song kept asking for those elements. Same with the piano. Payam [Doostzadeh], our bass player, who is an amazing pianist, went in and cut the piano. It was just one of those songs that we went with the flow of what it was asking for. We weren’t trying to necessarily reinvent the wheel.”
“God As Witness” is a hard-rocking tune featuring heavy, gritty guitar riffs, explosive energy, and an anthemic chorus. “There is always a moment of the heavier side [on the albums] that we enjoy tapping into,” Cannata says. “When we were in the studio with Brendan, that song really came alive from us playing it all together. There has been a long rabbit hole of me, Jacob [Tilley], and Payam on our journey of distortion and fuzz and adding grit to our instruments. There was a bass synth like a low organ, and we layered that with the drop D fuzz guitar. That is like the furthest heavy we get.”
“Are You With Me?” has a mesmerizingly dreamy melody in the chorus that is sure to get stuck in your head. “When we were in the studio, I brought in a synth called the Baldwin Discoverer, and it’s an old synth that is fairly simple but sounds almost like a mix of an electrical piano, like a Rhodes or a Wurlitzer sound, meets more of a sparkly synth,” Cannata shares. “I kind of relearned my guitar part on the Baldwin Discoverer. I was like, ‘I don’t know. I kind of like it on guitar,’ and everyone was in the control room listening to me cut the keyboard part, and they were like, ‘We prefer this sound.’” The bridge in this track is one of Cannata’s favourite moments from the album. “I love the kind of left turn that it takes, and I love how Sameer sang that part. The song overall is a cruising, floating song until that point. I just love the tension that it builds because it feels really true to where we are at in terms of really wanting to feel at peace and to feel like humans, but feeling like the external world is making that very hard right now.”
The album closes with the stunning piano tune “Life Is A Long Goodbye.” “I’m really loving writing on the piano because my main instrument is the guitar, but I grew up listening to my father play piano,” Cannata says. Originally, the song was longer and had more instrumentation. “When we were in the studio and when we had the context of the full record, it felt like there might have been something missing of something completely stripped. Even shortening the song and keeping it a minute long felt like an interesting take on the idea of ‘Life Is A Long Goodbye…’ The meaning of that line I am still curious about – it is almost like the song is an invitation to restart the album like a rebirth in the garden.”
Victory Garden is set to drop on May 1. “Victory Garden means a return to our humanity,” Cannata reflects. “As a band, I feel like it means a return to each other, a return to the joy of the creative process together, and to seeing the world like we are kids again. We talk a lot about radical empathy with this record, and I think what that means to us is this idea of love over fear. The world feels so heavy right now and polarizing, and I think what we needed as a band or needed from this record was a reminder of our humanity, our friendship, and the idea of love over fear.”
Tour Dates
Sun-May 24 – Las Vegas, NV | Pearl Concert Theater at Palms Casino Resort ^
Wed-May-27 – Cleveland, OH | Jacobs Pavilion *^
Fri-May-29 – Richmond, VA | Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront *^
Sat-May-30 – Raleigh, NC | Red Hat Amphitheater *^
Sun-May-31 – Charlotte, NC | Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre *^
Sat-Jun-06 – Atlanta, GA | Synovus Bank Amphitheater at Chastain Park *^
Thu-Jun-11 – Asbury Park, NJ | Stone Pony Summer Stage *^
Fri-Jun-12 – Vienna, VA | The Filene Center at Wolf Trap *^
Sat-Jun-13 – Bridgeport, CT | Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater *^
Sun-Jun-14 – Philadelphia, PA | Skyline Stage at Highmark Mann *^
Tue-Jun-16 – Buffalo, NY | Outer Harbor Live at Terminal B *^
Thu-Jun-18 – New York, NY | Pier 17 *^
Fri-Jun-19 – New York, NY | Pier 17 *^
Sat-Jun-20 – Boston, MA | Leader Bank Pavilion *^
Mon-Jun-22 – Toronto, ON | Coca-Cola Coliseum *^
Tue-Jun-23 – Pittsburgh, PA | Stage AE *^
Thu-Jun-25 – Detroit, MI | Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill *^
Fri-Jun-26 – Columbus, OH | Kemba Live! *^
Sat-Jun-27 – Nashville, TN | Ascend Amphitheater *^
Thu-Jul-09 – Houston, TX | 713 Music Hall *+
Fri-Jul-10 – Austin, TX | Moody Amphitheater *+
Sat-Jul-11 – Irving, TX | The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory *+
Tue-Jul-14 – Phoenix, AZ | Arizona Financial Theatre *+
Wed-Jul-15 – San Diego, CA | Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre *+
Fri-Jul-17 – Los Angeles, CA | Kia Forum *+
Sat-Jul-18 – Santa Barbara, CA | Santa Barbara Bowl *+
Sun-Jul-19 – San Francisco, CA | The Greek Theatre *+
Thu-Jul-23 – Jacksonville, OR | Britt Pavilion *+
Fri-Jul-24 – Vancouver, BC | Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre *+
Sat-Jul-25 – Seattle, WA | Marymoor Live *+
Sun-Jul-26 – Troutdale, OR | Edgefield Amphitheater *
Wed-Jul-29 – Missoula, MT | KettleHouse Amphitheater *+
Thu-Jul-30 – Salt Lake City, UT | The Lot at The Complex *+
Fri-Jul-31 – Dillon, CO | Dillon Amphitheater *+
Sun-Aug-02 – Kansas City, MO | Starlight Theatre *+
Mon-Aug-03 – La Vista, NE | The Astro Amphitheater *+
Thu-Aug-06 – Minneapolis, MN | Surly Brewing Company *+
Fri-Aug-07 – Chicago, IL | Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island *+
Sat-Aug-08 – St. Louis, MO | Saint Louis Music Park *+
Sun-Aug-09 – Indianapolis, IN | Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park *+
* Cold War Kids
^ almost monday
+ KennyHoopla
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