As I walk up the stairs of the labyrinthian backstage of the Barfly, Camden, I hear the belly laughter of JD Simo, joking with fellow bandmates Elad Shapiro (bass), and Adam Abrashoff (drums). Just as I arrive, a gargantuan Wagamama’s takeout is delivered to them. Once the ribs have been stripped of their meat, and the black plastic bowls drained of their contents, I am invited to share a crimson leather sofa with Adam, facing JD and Elad, who is lying upside down. All are dressed very expressively: JD sports some flared jeans and a retro blue blazer, Elad a checkered shirt with most of its buttons undone, Adam some flower-print trousers and a well-worn corduroy jacket. Thankfully, as the interview starts, the pounding bass of the downstairs soundcheck ceases.
THE INDIEPENDENT: How’s the tour been going so far?
JD: Apart from my knee [JD dislocated his kneecap in a high-energy Paris show a few weeks back] it’s been really wonderful! Just two days before we came to Europe, we finished a 46-city US tour, so it’s been a really busy year for us. But we’re grateful that people have been coming out for a rather new band like us. To travel around and have people come and see us play is really special. But tonight is our 50th show of the year, and that’s a lot.
Adam: Yeah I could’ve used another four days before we flew over here!
JD: But when the band first formed five or six years ago, this is what we were working towards – having the opportunity to travel around and play, and I think it’s just part of it. With a lot of bands, especially younger bands like us, there’s a lot of bitching that goes on, and a lot of entitlement, but this is what you’re here to do. You go out and you play, and you try to do a good show for the people that come to see you. It’s a gypsy existence, and if you’re cool with that, you’ll do it till you die.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Regarding your latest album, you guys went down to Macon, Georgia, to record some of it, but then returned with an entirely new set of songs – how did that happen?
JD: Well we’d finished a whole record for the label and they wanted us to do a couple of bonus tracks, so we decided that we were going to go down to Macon just to do those few bonus tracks, but we got everything we needed finished right away. So we had the rest of that day, and the whole next day, and so we just worked. After all was said and done and we came back and started mixing the stuff, I just thought it was better than what we had already turned in. So there was a hectic moment there, where they had already slotted a release date and all that kind of stuff. When we had signed with Mascot, it was basically on the grounds of this record which had already been turned in. Initially, there was some apprehension – What are you guys doing? But personally I just put my foot down and said, I think this is better, and I think this is what we should do, and hopefully everyone feels the same. And luckily everyone did! That was all very happenstance. It wasn’t a planned thing.
THE INDIEPENDENT: I imagine that recording in the Big House would give you a great sense of history and heritage – did this conflict with your efforts to move forwards and progress musically?
JD: I don’t think they conflicted, but in terms of where we are at this moment, we’re already well into working on the next record, and I think that with us especially, there’s always going to be a reverence for music that came before us, because we love all types of music, and there’s a lot of music that we love that was made a long time ago. But it’s important to push yourself and to grow, and the record that we made in Let Love Show the Way was the record that we made at the moment, and it’s up to us as artists, although I hate that term.
THE INDIEPENDENT: What do you hate about it?
JD: It seems pretentious to me. Music that I love is accessible, and it’s beautifully imperfect. I like things that are flawed in some way – I find it more engaging. But to me, John Lennon was flawed. Listen to him sing, and listen to something that he wrote.
Adam: Listen to a tambourine overdub on any Beatles record and it’s all over the place! It’s out of time, it gets loud and soft! It’s not perfect!
JD: What I’m trying to say is that for us, there’s always going to be a reverence, but we’re really trying to push ourselves to go beyond all of that, which is really tough because in a lot of ways, it’s all been done already! For the three of us, given the kind of record Let Love Show the Way is, we’re all very proud of it, and I think that it’s a very good introduction to us, but it’s up to us now not to repeat it, but to grow and to do something musically that advances what we do. That’s probably more important to the three of us at the moment than anything. Elad’s been a big influence in that regard – wanting to push forward. We all have different roles in the band. As you can tell, I’m the most talkative! [Laughs] But it’s one of my roles! I’m more hung up on emotive content. To me, if something’s conveying an emotion then I’m happy. Adam is probably the best musician in the band [Adam shakes his head in humility] – he understands music and can articulate it in a way that we [gesturing to himself and Elad] can’t. Whereas Elad is the most forward-thinking: he isn’t tied to a preconceived notion of what music should be. But at this point, we made Let Love Show the Way almost a year ago…
Adam: Even though it’s only been out for three months!
JD: We’ve toured relentlessly since then, so if anything we’re looking forward to the future.
Elad: Very much. [Laughs] That’s pretty much all I’m thinking about, which is stupid – I know you’ve gotta focus on what you’re doing now – but I can’t stop thinking about arrangements and sounds and shit. I really want the next record to be something else. [Adam: Mic placements and Fairchilds! (presumably referencing a type of electrical circuit component)] Not that I’m not proud of the record, but I want to take time to explore, which wasn’t possible in two days. The focus was: Let’s get a performance in and that was it. I would really like to take time and experiment with stuff, like my favourite bands did back then.
THE INDIEPENDENT: JD, you talked about emotive content, do you think music should have a clear message? Let Love Show the Way seems to be quite a clear instruction.
JD: That is on purpose, perhaps selfishly. But I don’t think music has to have a clear message. Again, it’s really tough with music, because you can be talking about something on the surface or very profoundly, and it’ll be relevant on any level. But at the base of it music has been something I’ve got lost in, even before I ever played an instrument. For whatever reason, because I was unhappy, or because I didn’t like what was going on around me as a child, music was a way to escape reality, and it still is. I think that’s the case for a lot of people and it’s why music is so important in our culture, and has been for so long. It’s a non-chemical way to change your reality if you allow yourself to be immersed in it. In that regard, I don’t think the message necessarily has to be clear, because it can be whatever you need it to be at that moment. Whatever the creator is trying to convey is great, but what’s more important is what the listener is getting out of it. And I don’t think that can happen unless there’s legitimate emotive content – if something was created for no reason, then how can there be a connection at all? It can be a pop song that’s meant to be a bit of fun. It can be that – that’s valid. It doesn’t have to be, slit your wrists sympathy time, and that’s still genuine. For our generation, the millennials: it’s a weird time. I for one feel forcefully numbed by technology. I feel numbed by everything around me, and I’m fighting to stay connected to what I really feel. The more distracted you are, the harder it is to feel anything.
THE INDIEPENDENT: How do you think the Internet has affected the way we perceive music?
JD: I don’t think the Internet has changed the way we perceive anything necessarily…
Adam: It has created a forum for people to be nasty with no repercussions because of anonymity.
JD: If anything, I think that it’s amazing because we can find anything we want at any moment, which didn’t used to be the case, and which is incredible. But I would venture to say that we perceive music as a little less important because there isn’t the struggle to find out about something that there once was.
Adam: We expect it to be free!
JD: Well I’m not going to go into that because, we all have very different opinions on this, for me, everything will work out in the end. There’s corruption everywhere we sit, but I don’t wanna go into that either. But if anything, the Internet has made music somewhat less important because of oversaturation, which is understandable. It’s like walking into a gallery full of paintings – what are you supposed to do? If there’s 40 million pieces of music, how is one thing within that sea of information supposed to be important? And that’s a tough thing, and I don’t know the answer to it.
THE INDIEPENDENT: I agree, especially regarding the different way we take in music. I found you guys on YouTube, but back in the day I would have had to hear that on the radio, then call up the BBC and ask them who was playing at that exact moment.
Adam: Or go try all the 45s in the record shop!
JD: It was a different world. You had more of a connection with something, because you had to put in the effort, whereas now there’s no effort involved at all. And that’s a cultural thing we’re going to have to figure out one way or another. But I’m an optimist. I think that human beings are essentially good and we simply want to be liked and loved, and it’s the things that make us all the same that divide us unfortunately. But I’m hopeful.
THE INDIEPENDENT: You’ve released your latest album on vinyl, too, so in spite of Internet oversaturation and ease of access, do you think people are going to keep on buying vinyl?
Adam: People are! This is the resurgence of it.
JD: We’ve sold more vinyl as a whole than CDs. On the presale of the album, we sold out of presell vinyl three times over! It was insane!
Elad: I heard that United Record Pressing in Nashville press a million records a week. It makes sense – everything is so extreme now that people finally do wanna buy a record and play it. And I don’t think that’s a trend; I think that’s gonna keep happening.
JD: And that’s something that our generation is dealing with – I’ve never gone away from vinyl, and that’s how I learned to play. We didn’t have a CD player in our house so that was all I knew. It’s the proven way to listen to music, and I think it’s wonderful that it’s come back around. And it’s wonderful to walk into a record store – we did an in-store show recently and I saw Adele’s new record on vinyl. And I love that! It’s not really niche, and it’s not something I would think someone would feel the need to press on vinyl. But obviously someone in a very high-up position deemed it worthy, and that made me feel really good. I didn’t buy her record unfortunately, but I thought, Wow, that means there’s enough vinyl sales worldwide that some dude in an office said “Hell! let’s get those Adele records on vinyl – the kids are buying it!” That’s good to me, in principle at least.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Speaking of records, I know this is a nightmare question, but could I have your top three albums?
JD: Ever?
Elad: Oh shit.
Adam: Jesus.
Elad: Wow.
Adam: Jesus Christ.
JD: Yeah, Jesus Christ, that’s a good record! [Laughs]
Adam: Bitches Brew, Led Zeppelin (I), ah boy. Where do you go from there? The Beatles? King Crimson? Buddy Rich?
JD: You don’t have to go too deep, just pick one!
THE INDIEPENDENT: Favourite at the moment?
Adam: Ah! I’ve been listening to King Crimson’s Red a lot lately. I love Bruford’s playing on it.
Elad: At the moment I think is a good question. Well, for years now I’ve been listening to King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic – it’s one of my favourite records. All My Wishes’ new record, I forget what it’s called, but they’re my favourite new band. And Lettuce, Crush.
JD: Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys; The Butterfield Blues Band’s East-West, which is a damn big thing for me. And probably Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin. There’s so many.
Adam: Yeah. Electric Ladyland!
JD: But in my own time I listen to people like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin much more than anyone else. I’ve listened to rock music my whole life, but when I sit down to listen to music, I tend to listen to rhythm & blues. But I will say this – I love the fucking Alabama Shakes, man. I love them so much. They’re my favourite new band. I love Boys & Girls, their first record. I love the new record too, but that first record as a whole, I love that fuckin’ album. They made that record the way people made records 35 years ago, but the material is so strong and the performances are so good, and they’re a current band! I love them. They’re a real band, too, so you can’t take any one of them out of it: they each complete the sound. And Brittany [Howard] – God, the girl can sing! I love her. She’s the real deal. That’s four but whatever.
You can read our review of SIMO’s Barfly show here.
Words by Ben Caven-Roberts