Forming in 2004, American progressive rock band Circa Survive seamlessly grow in popularity with each release. To date, the band has released three full-length studio albums, and two EP's.
Their latest full-length Blue Sky Noise, was released in April of 2010 and debuted at #11 on Billboard 200. In November of 2010, they released an EP entitled, Appendage and have since been touring in support of both releases.
I got to sit down and talk with lead vocalist Anthony Green before they played a sold out show, and his good natured personality shined through every word he said. In my exclusive interview with Circa Survive vocalist Anthony Green, he talks about the bands stage production, why they started bringing fans on stage, who thought of the press passes for the ‘Blue Sky Noise’ tour, album artwork, and more.
The 'Blue Sky Noise Tour' was Circa Survives first major headlining tour in two years. Did you think after being away for so long you come back and do a headlining tour of this size?
Anthony Green: No, I was actually kind of scared when I saw the routing for the tour as a headliner. I’m the last person to know things, but I also wouldn’t begin to speculate the popularity of the band. I just wouldn’t know. I am really focused on all the other stuff, so when it comes together like this, and you end up playing a sold out show at Chicago’s House of Blues it is just incredible.
I think if you pay too close attention to that side of things, you are just going to end up deluding yourself, and become worried about things that don‘t matter. The more focused you are on what really matters, like music, and the aesthetic behind the music then maybe that is why the show is sold out.
Who thinks up the bands stage production?
Well, we are all really hands on with everything. From production to the bands that are on the tour, to artwork. We are all super hands on and we wouldn’t leave it up to anybody else. It is really important to us that everything is cohesive with the vibe of the band. We are all aware that you are trying to make money, but we want to put on a good show. I want people to leave our show being, “Fuck, that was crazy.”
All the elements of the show is a collective of all our ideas. There were elements that we were like, ‘Let’s do this,’ and we didn’t know how possible it was. We would do some research, send it to our manager, and our manager would be like, ‘That is going to get us sued,’ and then we would figure out some other way to do it.
What are some stage production ideas that got shot down?
I wanted to have a light suit.
A light suit?
Yeah, have you ever seen It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Yeah, I love that show.
I do too, and I wanted to find a greenman outfit and cover it in LED (Light-emitting diode) but it wouldn‘t be plugged in. We could turn all the lights off in the venue, and then boom, just be running around like crazy. That did not get shut down, it is just not available for us right now.
We have confetti for these shows, we have two cannons and I wanted to build something that I would be able to shoot it out, almost Ghostbuster style. It was just too much money, there was a lot of stuff we wanted to do that was too much money. There was all this lazar stuff I wanted to do that was too much money.
We did a tour with Coheed and we thought, ‘Man, what are we going to do,’ because they were allowing us to have a little bit of production, but we could not have a lot. We just had these giant mirrors, and we could take them apart each night, but when we put them up and stretched it they looked like 12 feet tall mirrors. We just had them lining the background so the audience was essentially starring at themselves. In all the pictures there are just a ton of different reflections, and it looked so neat. I kind of wanted to bring them back on this tour, but we have enough stuff going on.
During concerts you guys bring fans on stage, when did you start doing that?
We just started doing that when we started a fan club. I was never really into it, but I know our guitar player joined a Pearl Jam fan club when he was a kid and I used to write letters to a Nirvana fan club. So we decided to do this, and basically the membership gets you into the show early for soundcheck, they get to hang out, and they get a USB card in the mail. With the USB card, when you come to any show you can plug it into a computer at our merch table and get songs, demos, photos, interviews, and all this crazy shit.
It was like a week into the tour, we might have been in Orlando and we were soundchecking this song, and it ran through my mind because there was an element missing. Our sound guy, it was running through his mind too, and we were looking at each other and were like, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we did it, would that work. That’s not impossible, these kids could sing it, it’s really easy,’ so we tried it and brought them onstage and ever since then we try and do it as much as we can.
There are some nights that it just doesn’t work for one reason or another, or we are just like too tired to run through it, get them on stage, and run through all the stuff, but I just think it is really cool. It is not something we can do for every show for every fan club member. They don’t know about it when they come to soundcheck, they had no clue. There have been a couple of people going, ‘How do I get onstage?’ and we are like, ‘You have to buy a forty dollar membership,’ but you get a 7”, a t-shirt, and all this cool shit in the mail.
For soundcheck they get a private little concert of three songs.
Yeah, and I would shit myself if I was coming in to see a soundcheck and didn’t know, and all of a sudden the band was like, ‘Hey do you want to come and do this?’ I would be so stoked, so it is pretty sweet.
How did you guys determine which songs from the new album Blue Sky Noise to play on tour?
It is kind of difficult, because everybody wanted to play different songs, so we had to make a list of the ones we all agreed on, and some got left behind. It’s good to leave stuff for the next time because we wanted the show to be super rocking the whole way through, and leave some of the mellow songs out. There are a couple of times in the set that there are more mellow songs.
What songs have you not played live from the new album on the Blue Sky Noise headlining tour?
Yeah, there is one, it is the last song on the album. I can’t remember what the name is, but it is the last song on the album. Let me look it up on my phone, what do I type in, track listing? (laughs) When we were practicing for the tour, and learning some of the older songs we had not played for a while, I had to look up my own lyrics for two or three songs.
I don’t know how you guys do it, especially drummers.
Remember where all the parts are?
Yeah
Wait til you see Animals As Leaders because they are an all instrumental metal band, and they are they techiest shit I have ever heard in my life. It is all kinds of super fast, and you will watch the drummer and I don’t understand how he distinguishes one part from another. When we are playing it is a straight beat, and when they are playing it is like jazz.
"The Longest Mile," that is the only song on this album that we have not played. We have different sets, and we play different songs every night. Some of the songs are the same, like the first three songs are the same, and then we change it up, but wow that is really weird it is the only song we don’t play, strange.
Is it a slower song, is that why?
No, I don’t know what it is about it, I guess it just got left out.
Circa Survives press/photo pass has funny categories depicting what someone is there for, who came up with that? (see picture to left, or click here for closer look at pass)
Not me, not me. I think it was our tour manager Scott, the big mean looking bald guy that helped you out.
That flashed his flashlight in my eyes to motion he was ready for me?
Yeah, that is a crew thing, the flashy flash. That is how they communicate sometimes, so I think he is really in the whole world of his job right now. I think when he goes home to his girlfriend he flashes a flashlight at her to say, ‘I‘m going to the bathroom‘. He and Brad our guitar tech
I was going to ask who Brad is
Why, because he is on the pass?
Yeah (On the pass there is a category for ‘Brad’s Chum’)
Brad has friends everywhere, like everywhere. At every show they will be like, ’Oh yeah that is Brad’s buddy just hanging out.’ He is the coolest dude ever, and the best dude on our whole crew, I love him to death, he is just the man. He used to play guitar for Poison The Well, and he is just an invaluable member of the crew. I had to stop some of the things that were getting written on there, because they were being posted on the internet.
What other things got written on the pass you had to get taken off?
There was one that got posted on our facebook that said ‘Dishrag whore’. I know they sit around thinking of funny, weird, mean things to put on there, but now they are just sort of funny, goofy, and sort of mean.
But for this girl, they put it on there, and I thought she would be fucking mortified. She thought it was hilarious, thank god she had just as whacked a sense of humor as all of us. But man, I was just like ’Don’t write Dishrag Whore on peoples passes because you don’t know them and they could be so offended,” even if they aren’t, it just makes us look like a bunch of jerks.
What is your interpretation of the cover artwork on the Appendage EP? Do you think it is a boy or a girl? (Picture to the left, or click here to view artwork)
I don’t know, I don’t know, but they seem pretty content with where they are. They look pretty comfortable in there.
Does the artist Esao Andrews ever explain to you what it means, or does he leave it up to your own interpretations?
That is the thing about art, there is infinite interpretations behind it. It doesn’t just mean one thing, it means a million things. If you look at his website there are a lot of really ambiguous stuff going on, and you are not sure if someone is masculine or femane. I think it is a girl with short hair.
What would be all the long flowy, almost feathery hair?
The spider has wrapped it up in all that stuff, that is what it is, the spider wrapped it all up. It is really disturbing and weird.
Do you think the band will keep using Esao Andrews for all the artwork?
He is like our visual soulmate. Everything he conveys with art is what we want to convey with our music. It is a creepy sense of uncertainty, but something you just can’t help but want to dissect.
Good for you guys in scooping him up because he is talented.
Yeah, I know because he had never done any artwork for a band before, and I don’t think he will, he is sort of like our dude. Nothing else looks like that, and that is what I like about it.
All of the covers look so similar, yet so different.
Yeah, he has that style that is his. He has done all of our albums, I love it.
For your solo work, where are you in the process of a new album?
I have six or seven songs recorded, and as soon as I get off this tour I have to re-record some vocals. There are a couple extra songs, like three or four songs I want to record extra. There is some time I want to take with my other band, with Good Old War and they are writing the whole album with me. Before, they came in and played on four or five songs in like two days. About a year ago, last January we got together and messed around with these seven songs I had written, and they just made the songs incredible.
[Anthony’s phone starts ringing]
That’s my son [shows me phone where a picture of his son pops up when someone calls]
He is so cute, what was his name again?
James
Did you get to pick it?
Yeah, she let me pick it. She liked it.
Well, my dad picked mine and when he suggested it, she asked if he ever dated a Natalie.
That is what we went through with all the names! She would name a name and I would be like, ‘No, I knew a guy named Jack who used to beat me up in grade school.’ She liked names of girls that I used to date, and I was like, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it.‘
For more information on Circa Survive: http://www.circasurvive.com/
For more information on Esao Andrews: www.esao.net
What do you think of Circa Survive's album artwork? What do you think the album artwork for Appendage EP represents? Leave comments below, or connect with me via Twitter: @NatalieChicago
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