After a couple of sonically inventive (and critically acclaimed) indie rock albums in 2009 debut Why Are There Mountains and 2011’s Lenses Alien, New York City’s Cymbals Eat Guitars returned in 2014 with LOSE, one of the year’s very best straightforward rock ‘n’ roll records that amped up the band’s crossover appeal while hitting creative high marks in singles “Warning” and “Chambers.”
The four-piece played a headlining show in Oklahoma City on Sunday at 89th Street Collective, just after wrapping up dates in support of emo heavyweights Say Anything and Modern Baseball. We talked to bassist Matthew Whipple about the band not being think piece fodder, Britpop, and having a wig-out moment.
Oxford Karma: How did this tour with Say Anything and Modern Baseball go?
Matthew Whipple: It has been really great to play in front of big crowds each night, mostly made up of people hearing us for the first time. The response has exceeded our expectations. It has also been really fun on a personal level getting to be buddies with Hard Girls and Modern Baseball — amazing bands, amazing people.
OK: You guys are kind of at this interesting intersection in that you can obviously play with these heralded emo sorts of bands like Say Anything and Modern Baseball, but then you are just as frequently sorted aside bands like Cloud Nothings or Japandroids or touring with someone like This Will Destroy You. How do you think your band fits into this greater picture of this emo revival currently happening?
Whipple: I don’t think we’re really a part of whatever movement people say is happening in any genre. It seems like a lot of empty buzzwords or flavor-of-the-month think piece fodder. We don’t really pay attention to that stuff. We assess each touring opportunity as it comes; some are weirder than others in terms of musical compatibility, but those tend to be the most fun.
OK: I’d say there a lot of bands like you (Alex G, Pity Sex, Elvis Depressedly) that can of hedge that line. How much of it do you think kind of plays into those years in the ’90s with Nirvana, Sunny Day Real Estate redefining what rock ‘n’ roll could be?
Whipple: I think as long as there are bands just diving headlong creatively into what they have always loved about music and placing that above trying to be what someone else says is cool, there will be those kinds of interesting bands with appeal to fans of many genres. Flattering company for you to put us in, for sure. Don’t forget Mitski, though.
OK: Do you think LOSE has played a role in opening the gates to new audiences like that?
Whipple: It’s definitely our most accessible record, but it may also scan that way more because it comes on the heels of Lenses Alien, which was kind of a wig-out moment for us.
OK: Not that it’s a full-on pop record or anything, but it certainly does seem to be more hook-heavy than anything you’ve done up to this point, too. What was it that you were listening to or doing that led you in that direction?
Whipple: We were listening to a lot of classic Britpop, stuff that kind of wears it’s cultural surroundings on its sleeve. And I think it made us want to go for a kind of “American indie” sounding record — almost like treating that in itself as a genre with a sound that is very famiar, even though in reality it kind of isn’t that unifiable.
OK: Now that there’s been a little distance between the release of the album and now, what about LOSE are you guys most proud of and pleased with as a whole?
Whipple: The songs, for sure. It is hands down the best batch of songs we’ve put to tape, and it still gives me goosebumps when I hear it.
OK: Why did you settle on LOSE as the title of the album, and how do you think it spoke to the mood or concept driving the songs, collectively speaking?
Whipple: Much of the album is about the concept of loss, but we decided to be clever and kind of invite the listener to participate in it. Using the word in its command form was the most deliberate aspect of titling the record. Everybody loses something or someone or fails at something at some point, and the album title is an invitation — like, “come on, let’s talk about that for a while.”
OK: How do you think you grew and evolved as a band heading from Lenses Alien to LOSE? How much of that was organic and how much of that was a conscious pursuit?
Whipple: We wanted to make something simpler than Lenses, and that’s not an easy thing to do. For most of us, creatively speaking, letting go of an idea is a lot harder than having it in the first place.
OK: What sort of plans do you guys have headed into the end of 2015 and into 2016?
Whipple: It seems like we might be finished touring for LOSE soon, but who knows? We’re doing a short trip to Europe in August to do some festivals, but after that everything is kind of up in the air, which feels kind of nice after a year of touring.
