Premiere: Alice Valentine Talks Self-Production of Debut EP 'Checking In' & "Barely Breathing" Music Video
WHEN ALICE VALENTINE GETS TOGETHER, THERE IS A SENSE OF ELECTRIC PLAYFULNESS THAT SURROUNDS THE AIR - and there are no boundaries on just how far their experimental nature will take them. Alice Valentine, which consists of Gene Taylor (vox/bass), James Manzello (vox/guitar), Avery Ballotta (vox/strings), and Micah Cowher (vox/drums), features Sam Behr (vox/keys) on their debut EP Checking In, a compact yet layered five song record with a quite distinctive mix of folk, psych, pop, soul, punk, & pure rock’n’roll.
It was the middle of 2020 in Brooklyn, New York & the lockdown was in full force. What were roommate musicians to do but jam on their couch & busk during the summer months? Well, maybe officially form a band & make one of the most refreshing experimental rock albums of the year. Amidst the depths of quarantine, not really knowing when venues would open, when touring would ever be possible again, or even why they were so drawn to creating nonstop - the guys from Alice Valentine committed to forming a creative playground & hub in their BedStuy apartment - only to end up self-producing & recording their first record together in their basement.
The pandemic, though some may feel is closing in to a somewhat definitive end, will never be something we can ignore. The long term effects on merely our way of socializing and interacting with one another has changed drastically, yet music proves to continue to be an almost endless bordering on spiritual way of connecting with others, as well as with the self & our own sense of reality. Sometimes, just like the way there is a seemingly never ending amount of films & tv shows to tune in to, we as listeners can get overwhelmed in what to tune into next in the music realm - especially during a time when there is so much constant creativity & self-production. Bands like Alice Valentine truly are the perfect example of how genuine collaboration, camaraderie, and openness to improvisation and exploration can lead to the creation of an intangible yet welcoming home within an aural space - a perceptive, sensing, and transcendent home amidst the soundwaves.
Read below to learn more about Checking In and watch the premiere of their new music video, “Barely Breathing”
LUNA: What were some of your favorite ways to explore sonically throughout the creation of Checking In, your Debut EP.
BALLOTTA: Each song presented not just a window but an open door to a new world. Or a world that has always existed that we were getting the pleasure of being invited to. So a lot of what ended up in the record sonically was our best attempt at representing an energetic truth that we best communicate through our individual sound.
TAYLOR: Sonically, I’m really appreciative of the synth & keyboards that really aren’t your standard sounds that you might hear on rock radio or pop songs. I think our sounds are a marriage of our influences and our childhood. Like being a fan of soul music, but also a huge rock fan - seeing how to marry them yet still having a sense of psychedelic rock & boundaryless production & songwriting. I don’t think we wanted to stick to something specific but more so explore since it was the pandemic - who cares what it sounds like? I think that allowed us to really explore sonically versus thinking of what a label would think. Like guitars?... Raise them!
MANZELLO: We all came as ourselves. We came as we were. You hear pure Micah, Pure Gene, Pure Avery, Pure Sam, Pure James. We weren’t serving any purpose. There are certain elements that define certain genres but we weren’t interested in that. We were kinda open to whatever. In a way it’s not a risk but it may sound like a jumble of madness if you’re not in the creation process - it may not sound cohesive but we trusted that if we allowed each of us to create our own unique sound without boundaries & enjoyed ourselves… it would work.
LUNA: Everyone is their own world & you’re all coming together to create your own universe?
COWHER: Dusty is a great word to describe the record, for me. There are so many soundscapes that happen on the record where the listener can feel euphoria or butterflies while experiencing the album, not even just melodically. You forget that there are so many other ways to evoke emotion through sound. So when I think dust I think of literal particles within the songs. Like during the song Seeds - so many layers of sounds. Nails is another word. It’s punk. There’s a certain energy - it’s the underbelly of everything and you see it in our live shows. Barely Breathing and B4 You Come Around - those are both live takes. We didn’t really have a choice but to be organic since we self produced in the basement mid-pandemic. It always blows my mind listening to them & that in itself evokes a lot of emotion.
LUNA: Lyrically, the album feels very universal & relatable thematically yet at the same time quite personal. What was the songwriting process like as a band?
TAYLOR: It was quite varied. James brought B4 you Came Around…
MANZELLO: Yeah, I started writing the bones of that song when I was like… 19? I think the songwriting process was very much dependent on the fact that we lived together at a time when the world was shut down. So it wasn't like “You make sure you’re at band practice!” but more like - we're all chilling on the couch and just encouraging each other to bring out old lyrics and jam on them- try new things. No judgments. Bring anything you’ve ever written. Here’s this high school riff - and boom a song came with everyone layering their own on it. Truly collaborative from day one. Seems like an obvious statement for a band but we all contributed since it isn’t always like that. Sometimes there's one sole guy telling everyone what to do and that wasn’t the case. We all brought in a lot of writing & we all reworked it too.
LUNA: Also you guys individually all play a variety of instruments & have been or are currently in a number of bands. Do you feel like that influenced the fact that - as much as you have roles (Micah is the drummer etc) nobody was set in one thing? All of you do vocals on the record, right? How did you guys go from just jamming on the couch to deciding - hey, let’s make a record. Let’s start a band?
COWHER: The power of the whiteboard. I remember we were at peak creative time & we had already tracked a couple of tracks. The first two songs on the record were with a certain type of snare drum but the next three were post a convo we all had. The whiteboard was a way of setting it all up. Laying out what we wanted to track. We blasted the first two demos in the car. Sam had just joined us and we were busking outdoors and connecting musically. It was a very evocative and experimental period.
BALLOTTA: We represent largely in our lyrics what it feels like to be going through the lessons that we were experiencing through that time. You know, everyone was being hit with everything. That was the wave in the ocean that hit our boat and we just had to work on the deck and sing along while we’re being tossed around this ocean with no foreseeable shore. Yet the singing saved our lives. I really feel deeply about that.
LUNA: There are definitely a lot of themes about isolation but also being grounded amidst it. In some ways it also feels very theatrical. I know a lot of you guys have theater backgrounds as well as production & sound engineering backgrounds. Do you feel that was a big part of why it felt so natural to flow right into producing in the basement?
BALLOTTA: A lot of it was us discovering these songs in real time and using the computer as much as an instrument as anything else. Which was such a blessing for the time.
LUNA: What software were you guys using?
MANZELLO: All Logic, all the time. (Avery) We were recording to a Tascam Model 12 for a lot of it and then working with Logic and remotely working with Garrett Eaton who’s in L.A. & helped as co-producer & mixer. We would have facetime meetings & that just took the collaborative aspect to a whole other level.
LUNA: Any favorite moments during production?
COWHER: The day when we tracked Barely Breathing and B4 You Came Around & we were just laying on the floor in the basement listening to the tracks and trying to pick the best ones. We were just so excited because it felt- yes, like it was right at the precipice of the band. It was so late but we really tapped in - just being able to watch each other record. Usually in a studio it can feel somewhat detached with your bandmates in that you’re kinda looking through a window but you’re in another room and you’re there and you’re listening but it’s not the same. We were right next to each other - stress free. Taking iphone videos & just cheering each other on - yet we took it seriously too. As roommates we were all on the same page too and in the same space so that helped. There was no clock - we could track whenever.
MANZELLO: That was the thing - it all kind of poured out. There was a distinct time when we knew we had something incredible. We didn't have to have a meeting on what we had to sound like. It was raw energy and it was cool because nobody was lying and everyone would just play & it mainly worked because we were just being ourselves. This is what it’s about. Doesn’t this deserve studio time recording? We had a time when we had decided we wanted to do that but we also didn’t really want to outsource. Someone outside of this intense, quarantining creative bomb while still getting the best quality sound, it just didn’t fully click. Eventually, we realized the magic was in the room. The basement became a place where we didn’t have to get heady - it felt more instinctual & we could record whenever. If I wanted to just play the guitar one day - let me just plug it in & play scales over something we had already been tracking. It had to be in a place where we lived so we could just roll out of bed and create versus having to set aside and book time and space. As much as there are a lot of methodical aspects to each track, the experimental aspect comes from the space and flow we were able to create.
LUNA: Last but not least, who is Alice Valentine? How did you guys come up with this name?
TAYLOR: Very simple story: James wrote a song called Alice Valentine and he was just strumming and singing in the living room one evening & he got to the line “the Alice Valentine is where I’ll be tonight”... finished the song. Then I was just like, “Hmm… the Alice Valentine? Isn’t that a hotel? I think I’ve played there”. James just laughs - “no dude, I just made it up!” We already were a band and weren’t even thinking of a name but this just -
BALLOTTA: This just felt right. Same with songs, the band name just came up on the couch.
MANZELLO: It was a fictitious hotel in my mind. The space that I was in at the time was very much about wanting everyone to just get along - “every alibi Peru to Palestine will be heard without a reprimand” - I was just playing with sounds within words & it felt like a smoky place where we can all just come together and be ourselves - The Alice Valentine just fit. But it’s a real song - it’s recorded!
TAYLOR: & the innkeeper character - he makes an appearance on the album art. It all kinda came full circle. Even with the production of our music video for Barely Breathing, a lot of the creative aspect of getting together as a band has been exploring, experimenting, and being open to not judging the process while still committing to our own sound and what ultimately feels right- what clicks.
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