Larry Heath caught up with Sierra of VersaEmerge ahead of the band joining the Soundwave tour to chat about new material, ‘Santa Baby’ and much more! Transcription by Daniel Patrick.
Where am I chatting to you from?
I’m in St Petersburg Florida – good ol’ town that I grew up in. Just hanging out.
You’ve had a little bit of a break I understand. Are you enjoying your time off?
Yes and no. It’s been really odd because we travelled for pretty much a straight three years, and this is the longest time I’ve ever been home and… I don’t blend in, let’s just say that! I don’t really know how to be a human. We’ve been working on the record for most of the break and we’re really, really lucky to have this much time to work on music. It’s kind of unheard of for bands right now to take this long of a break, but it’s been really good for us.
You must get a little antsy, so used to being on the road…
It’s odd because on tour, every day is Friday. It’s definitely weird. It also puts these thoughts into my head – “Should I move out of my house, should I start settling down, should I start doing things? What should I do??” I’m kind of going crazy.
It’s not long before you cure the boredom. You’ll be coming down to Australia!
This is going to be the perfect homecoming.
Is this your first time to Australia?
Yes sir it is.
I know we were supposed to have you here in September for Soundwave Revolution but now for Soundwave… Are you looking forward to making the trip down?
We’ve been looking forward it. It was seriously the worst news I could’ve received when I heard Soundwave was cancelled, and I didn’t believe it at first — I called my manager and said “That’s a fucking lie, not true, there’s no way, we’re going to Australia!”
Then when I realised we were still able to go – even though it was a few months later for the next Soundwave – it was probably the best news I’ve ever heard.
We’re so excited just to play again. We haven’t been on the stage in so long, so we’re really looking forward to that. And the fact that, because we haven’t been on stage in so long and the first stage we’re playing is in Australia…I’m not complaining!
Would you consider this the start of a new touring cycle?
We’re still playing stuff off Fixed At Zero and the EPs before that because the (new) record is not completely finished, and we’re actually going into the studio directly after Australia. We’re actually flying from Australia to California to do it, so we’re not going to play new songs because everything changes in the studio. We don’t wanna play them too soon.
How is that process comparing to your new material?
We get into these modes where we’re thinking a little too hard, but we’re trying to really convey ourselves in the right way. I feel like a lot of people have been confused about us sometimes – we kind of get thrown into all these random categories that we don’t belong in, and people know we don’t belong in those categories but nobody knows where to place us. So we’re very much on this journey of creating our own niche.
I guess visually and everything, just making sense of everything and putting it out so that it’s something that people can pick up on. Not that we’re not understandable…just a little bit more worldly (this time). For the last record I think it was a little more organic and earthy – that’s what I think of. It was very much “forest and grey skies”. This is definitely out of that world. It’s up in space.
You couldn’t get any more opposite than that…
We use a lot of different sounds. For the last record we were really orchestral – a lot of strings, a lot of bells and all the fun stuff. This time we used the term “retro-futuristic” – old synth sounds, analogues, a little bit more like that.
When you mention the word “Space” all I can think of is 2001: A Space Odyssey…
You have just nailed it on the head! We are just huge fans of Kubrick. He’s definitely a huge influence on a lot of the stuff that Blake’s written. Because we’re both visual people, we actually just got a TV up in his studio and we’ve watched 2001 probably four times. We just mute it while we work on music and let it play so we have a visual. It’s like we’re scoring our own music to it.
Does something like 2001 influence the lyrics of your music, is it purely an aesthetic for the tapestry of instrumentation?
Yes it is, but there’s always a running theme with me. I wouldn’t say (this record) is too far from the last… it’s very much about personal freedom and escapism; fighting with yourself. It has a lot to do with freedom and being locked behind an invisible door. You just gotta let yourself out.
You mentioned you were recording in California, who are you going to be working with on the record?
We’re working with our friend Shaun Lopez. We did a lot of different stuff with him on this record and melded really well. He’s an awesome musician and just a complete weirdo, so it works really well.
It should be a fun process. When do you think we’ll get to hear the material? Will it be ready for Christmas?
Yes it’ll be here before Christmas hopefully…i’d say by July.
How did the Santa Baby music video come together?
We decided to do a Christmas cover very last minute, and we started working with our friend Raũl Gonzo. We were looking for someone that we’d wanna do videos with consistently rather than switching up directors all the time, because not everyone understands the vision we’re trying to convey. With budgets and money it’s just hell to do that.
I meshed with him really well and we were talking about videos we wanted to do for the record, and even just viral videos to be as creative as we want – he’s super down to earth. He just flew to Florida on a whim, and he was literally like “I’ll fly out tomorrow”, and I said “Ok, let’s do it”.
He came to my house, he brought one camera and we made a set in my garage. We hung sheets up, he had a few lights… we just literally did it with the things in my house when it came to the smoke and the lighting, and we did it all in one day. Hes so good and he gets whatever we’re going for.
The whole point of the video is the narcissitic side of the song. When Marilyn sings it, all I can think of her doing is seducing Santa. It’s very evil to me, and that’s how I wanted to portray it.
Well you certainly achieved that…
Did you think I was going to kill you by the end?
I thought you’d maybe smash the mirror over my face, I wasn’t quite sure…
Oh god I would never. Maybe.
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Catch VersaEmerge playing all dates of the Soundwave tour across Australia. Sidewaves are listed below!
February 28th – The Metro – Sydney, NSW
March 1st – Billboard – Melbourne, VIC
March 3rd – Bonython Park – Adelaide, SA
