Q&A: The Day "We Killed Our Hearts"

SpotlightMusic

Oct 23

REFLECTING ON LOSS AND HEARTBREAK - The Day pulls all the heartstrings with their latest music video “We Killed Our Hearts”. Shot on 16mm, the dream pop duo emmulate a nostalgic yet warm feel with the track, making the viewer wish they could just walk right into the video. Part of their 4-track EP Soon I Will Forget, “We Killed Our Hearts” is reminiscent of a teen coming of age film, highlighting the rollercoaster of emotions that come with love.

The Dutch-German group recently recorded the live EP, a project that shows a bit more of a raw and authentic approach to their sound. Read below to learn more about the making of the EP, the “We Killed Our Hearts” music video and more.

LUNA: From what I understand it’s been different than here in the US, but how has quarantine impacted your creative process while you've all be separated?

LAURA: At first glance you could think nothing really changed for us as we are a long distance band anyway. I live in Antwerp, Belgium and Gregor is in Hamburg, Germany which is 350 miles apart. So we are used to both having our time with the music and our ideas on our own and sending files to each other until we get together to record or play gigs. However to be honest with you, the overall uncertainty of the situation in terms of both health of your loved ones and yourself but also in terms of how to make a living, did not put me in a really creative mindset at all. It took weeks really until I could get back my focus to sit down and write again.

GREGOR: It was the same for me. I could not understand when bands we are friends with told us of their diligence in times of quarantine, while we both felt so numb. Also, the borders between our two countries had been closed. So even if we had wanted, it would not have been possible to meet. Which felt extra weird, as this has never happened in our lifetimes before and we always identified with the idea of being an European band, not linked to a single country. We still believe all of the different nations should work on this together and not believe the virus is stopping at their borders. But what is also true about our process: we both really use music as something to escape into, so this is really useful in these times laughs So luckily it did not take us too long to dive back into enjoying creating new stuff again.

LUNA: Sonically, what are some of the main ways you’ve seen your sound evolve with Soon I Will Forget?

LAURA: The EP is a live recording of our first ever live stream show that we played in June. And because it is recorded live with just the two of us and our drummer, it is probably a lot more rugged and less polished than our studio recordings. All of the songs are taken from our debut album ‘Midnight Parade‘ that was released in 2019 and for which we took quite some time to get the songs and sound feel right. But having played the songs live so often we always try „to elevate“ the songs and letting them evolve also by having open, more improvised sections in the arrangements and trying to embrace the momentum and power of a live show. So we hope you can run across this energy listening to the EP.

LUNA: The project was recorded at Pauluskirche in Mülheim, which I’m sure was a very fun experience. Can you share a favorite memory from the making of the EP?

GREGOR: Mülheim as a German city is not very well known in the US, I guess, but the great avantgarde Doom band ‘Bohren & der Club of Gore’ is from there and I am sure they have an audience in the US as well as they play some lovely moody ‘Twin Peaks’-style music. Hopefully the spirit of the city somehow ended up on our record as well laughs But yes, our show was recorded in a church and we never played in a church before. Also, knowing that our drummer is always hitting quite hard we did not know what to expect really.

LAURA: But as we could not meet and play together for quite some time it made the show extra intense and felt really relieving. The thing that stood us for us though playing the show was, that as there was no audience present, the awkward silence you get after a song is finished felt almost like a black hole because you are so used to get at least some sort of reaction of the people.

GREGOR: *laughs* Exactly. I also really like the way these moments are caught on tape now. You can probably tell that I let my amps loop some feedback and little noise after songs even longer to somehow cope with that.

LAURA: So that of course also made the experience very different than usual. But we could read back the realtime-reaction of the people in the chat on YouTube afterwards which is also very nice and not possible at a regular concert. So this whole experience of making it felt so special that we talked to our label Sinnbus and decided to put this out as an EP as some sort of document of where we are at as a band at this moment.

LUNA: Which set of lyrics are you most proud of from the EP?

LAURA: It is a bit awkward to point something out myself laughs but I am especially proud of the lyrics of the song ‘Illuminate‘. Which is the last song of our debut album and we never released it as a single before, so I like the way this song has become sort of the main motive for this EP. It is very abstract but at the same time very visual and I want the listeners to have a lot of room for their own perspective. The title of the EP ‘Soon I Will Forget‘ is also taken from this song and I love the way it fits the current situation so well although it was written much earlier. It is supposed to give hope I would say smiles I hope it works for you.

LUNA: The video for “We Killed Our Hearts” is just stunning and emulates such a nostalgic vibe. What inspired shooting this on 16mm and the concept of the video as a whole?

GREGOR: We simply love the warm melancholic vibe that goes with 16mm footage and tried to get somewhere close with digital footage since forever really using film-overlays and/or shooting on a camcorder lately but when we first saw the footage of this video even without any grading we were blown away rightaway. The difference of ‘mojo‘ and the way the colors and the contrast is sort of hitting your subconscious immediately is so impressive. We do not know how to achieve that digitally at the moment laughs which is so weird to say for us because we use so many sonic tools of the digital domain that emulate all the good things of the analog world when we produce our music but with images it seems different for us.

LAURA: We used 16mm one time before on our video for ‘Yet to Come‘ that we shot in Marseille with director Lumi Lausas.

But the concept for the video for ‘We Killed our hearts‘ was completely created by filmmaker Patrick Mattes based in LA. We simply trusted him and didn’t discuss anything with him beforehand so when he came up with the idea to shoot the video on 16mm we were thrilled. It fits his concept of capturing all these different people dealing with heartbreak so well. I really love the way the raw emotions in the images resonate with the lyrics of the song that are quite graphic whereas the music is rather soft-spoken.

LUNA: What role do you tend to play in your visual side?

LAURA: For us the visual side has always been connected to our music a lot. We are a DIY band and love to come up with visual projections to play with in our live set on our own, and we are still directing, filming, editing some of our videoclips ourselves but in the meantime we really enjoy collaborating with other artists on the visual field and giving room to them to come up with their concepts.

But as we feel the connection of music and images is so strong we try to keep it all in this same vein and try to create this warm, nostalgic, melancholic vibe around our music also on the visual side, where people can dive into when they see us play live. And we try to let that undertone come back in our videos, our artworks and our photos.

LUNA: Musically or not, what’s been inspiring you lately?

LAURA: Kae Tempest album ‘The Book of Traps and Lessons‘ is a huge inspiration source for me at the moment. It is so accurate concerning the times we are living in right now, what you should hold on to, why that’s so important and why you have to cherish that.

GREGOR: It was only recently when I found out about how much amazing visual art you can discover on Instagram. This is also where we found Moe Kite, a young photographer from Alabama, who made the cover photo for our EP. She is amazing. But also in terms of painters, I just found out about Scott Kahn, Nuria Maria, José Carlos Naranjo, Aida Muluneh, Gosia Machon. Only to name a few, I find those very inspiring. So much to discover!

Sky is the limit for this one - if you could collaborate with anyone for a track, who would you pick and why?

LAURA: With my all time favorite band Sigur Rós or with Helgi Jónsson. I keep telling Gregor that another big dream of mine is to record an album with an orchestra, with horn arrangements from Helgi and the voice of Jonsi (singer of Sigur Ros). That would be a dream come true for me!

GREGOR: Ok, convinced. I’m in laughs

LUNA: Now that Soon I Will Forget is out, what do you hope the rest of 2020 will bring?

GREGOR: First we are really excited about the release of the ‘We Killed Our Hearts‘ video because the song just has this special meaning to us and with this touching visual layer added by Patrick now it just feels gratifying for us to send this package out there for everyone now. But also we are getting more and more excited about our new stuff that we have been cooking in the studio or at our homes just recently. Also our last show this year that was scheduled for December at Berghain in Berlin, a place where we really love to play was cancelled unfortunately but not surprisingly, so we will not let this get us down and the time seems just right for bands to lock themselves up in a studio. So that is what we will do.

LAURA: Yes. Thanks so much for having us, Sophie. And all the best to you and your readers! xx

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