The Indiependent’s very own Issy was recently able to speak with Michael and Ariel of the acoustic duo Lions and Archers, six months after the release of their first EP Glenwood Manor. The band are currently living together in Chicago, making music, working two jobs, crying on pavements, creating poetry on the Metra and running their darkly whimsical Twitter accounts over at MichaelVincent and TheVulgarVag.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Last year you released your first EP as ‘Lions and Archers’ – why did you decide to start recording music together?
ARIEL: I would say it was less a decision and more a natural instinct. I heard him sing and he heard me sing and we just had to sing together, we just had to work together.
MICHAEL: I remember saying to Ariel, “we have to do this, we have to make music together” because after I heard her, I knew I’d found what I’d been missing, not just in her sound but also in the way that our writing styles complimented each other so perfectly.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Did you have any pre-conceived ideas of the recording process before this EP, and did they change as a result of your experience?
MICHAEL: You can liken most of my recording experiences to pulling teeth. I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to the process, which is ironic because most of my favourite records are really raw, low-fi.
ARIEL: Michael tells me recording an album is just as creative a process as writing an album. He’s really particular about all the intricacies of it, but it bores me (does that make me look bad?) I want to work on something new before the current thing is even finished, It’s hard to care about the high harmony on the fourth vocal track of some song you wrote six months ago when you’ve got five new songs running through your head before your first cup of coffee in the morning. It’s something I’m working on.
THE INDIEPENDENT: When you started to create the Glenwood Manor EP, were you writing towards a particular concept or did the aesthetic develop as the music itself did?
MICHAEL: I’m not really sure there is a cohesive concept behind Glenwood Manor.
ARIEL: I guess we could lie and say something poetic or profound, but really the EP came together like “trying to write songs 800 miles apart with a shitty Wi-Fi connection and a dog that won’t stop barking in the background”.
MICHAEL: We really admire conceptual albums like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Hospice, The Moon and Antarctica and we want to record our own (we’ve got plenty of ideas) but you know, like Ariel said, with Glenwood Manor, the whole thing was kind of helter skelter. Most of the songs were written while Ariel was living in New York, so we would play each other little bits and ideas over the phone, and then try to flesh out the songs when she would come to Chicago to visit for a weekend or whatever.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Why was the track ‘Terrace Drive’ left off the EP?
ARIEL: Initially we thought we’d close the EP with Terrace Drive, but decided against it due to personal matters. It’s still available on Bandcamp.
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THE INDIEPENDENT: What would you cite as your primary influences both lyrically and musically?
ARIEL: Braided sweet grass and lavender, feeding chickens, going into the chicken coop and seeing one chicken killed another, walking barefoot to the farm stand for peaches, the first time I rode in a taxi cab alone, woods and rocks and river and flood, coyotes with teeth the size of baby tusks, my first Broadway play, my first tube of lipstick, the hot blood of spring’s first butchering, the goldfish pond, a boy at the back of the school bus telling me what S-E-X is, Struwwelpeter and O Tennenbaum and seven scalpels to the red hot knee and thin stiff hospital gowns, the pink dawn glowing like God over the valley, wine stains and lemon juice, fireworks in Chatham, Massachusetts.
MICHAEL: Head full of fresh cut grass and oiled leather, skinned knees and dust clouds and coming Home, the sandpit and a blue gill tied up in string, gas grill barbecue, Robert gave me an apple and said “Don’ hurtcha self now, OK,” Robert’s dead now. Holy Roman Catholic Church apprenticeship of guilt, candle bearer turned cross bearer turned dope fiend, hiding liquor bottles like Easter eggs, nauseous confusion in the third base dugout, church basement junkie choir singing dopesick blues, Trackmark Trackstar on the rust eaten 95th street bridge, Earth tones, linoleum tile floor, nightmare floral acid trip, green, yellow, brown, orange, thick nicotine everything runt of the wheezing asthmatic owl-eyed litter, black spoon scientist pawns the world for slack-jawed nothing and Sunday morning blue lip bliss and no more incense swinging acolyte ceremony.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Glenwood Manor concludes with the track ‘Sixteen Moons and Jupiter’. What was the lyrical inspiration behind this?
MICHAEL: What are the lyrics again? Can wine be an answer? I mean it’s a pretty sounding song but the lyrics themselves are twisted and ugly. Babies being born blue and pewter is terrifying. Sterile homogenization of World. Starbucks and shopping malls and Jesus on your keychain and milk crates stuffed with self-help books (“How to Love Yourself Again!” and “How to Lose 200 Pounds in 24 Hours!”)
ARIEL: Can I get a Gluten Free Venti Mocha Chai Tea Vanilla Caramel Whipped Cream Latte with Soy Milk and Four Splenda (easy on the foam it makes my tummy hurt) my colour-coordinated Fitbit tracking the thirty two steps I take from my Honda Civic to the sliding glass doors of the Air Conditioned Sparkling Consumer Brothel
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THE INDIEPENDENT: If you could each make the listening of one record mandatory for all human beings, what would you select and why?
ARIEL: A crowded movie theatre hushed to nothing at the sight of white light in IMAX. I think that’s beautiful.
MICHAEL: A compilation of Ariel saying “I love you” because it’s the only sound I couldn’t live without.
THE INDIEPENDENT: What would your advice be to anybody that wants to make music?
ARIEL: Have fun and change the world while you’re at it.
MICHAEL: If you’re honest and passionate and you want to make music, make music. Do it for the bliss of doing it; without expectations or limitations.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Finally, are you currently working on a second EP – and if so when can we expect a release?
MICHAEL + ARIEL: Yes! Right now we’re collaborating with our dear friend, the wonderfully talented @CackleClub. We’re doing a few tracks for her upcoming project entitled ‘Remembering Agatha’ which consists of three vignette character studies and a standalone art exhibit where the film’s artwork is to be displayed with an accompanying focus on the Lions & Archers contributions. We’re so excited to be a part of such a talented team of professional artists. Production is currently ongoing, so a release date will be announced at a later time.
You can follow Lions and Archers’ musical journey on their Twitter and Bandcamp.
Words by Issy Marcantonio