by Heather Williams (@heatermeow)
Bruiser and Bicycle's immense new album, Holy Red Wagon, releases out into the world on April 5th via Topshelf Records. An album of expanding, exploding layers, it is a record to immerse into from start to finish with a good pair of headphones. It's the type of record the listener will hear new sounds within far into the future of repeated listens. It's chaos and clarity, a maze through space, time and sound. Keegan Graziane and Nick Whittemore of the Albany, NY based band sat down on the phone with me on a cold Sunday afternoon to talk more about making this record.
photo credit: Ariel Kenny
Heather: We’ve got three days til Holy Red Wagon comes out, how are you feeling?
Nick: It’s been a long time coming, we’ve been working on this record since before the pandemic.
Keegan: It kind of feels really strange because it felt like putting up the first single was going to take forever and then it was like, it was almost here. So yeah, the passage of time with this record has been very strange.
Heather: Do you write songs together, or is it like someone brings in a skeleton of a song, or pieces of music and you build from there… or how does that work in your band?
Keegan: I think it’s been different from each record.
Nick: Well the first EP that we did, we wrote that with four people in a room, and for that record I think I was the firmest creative voice. The second record, the first full length, Keegan and I basically wrote that between the two of us in a room together and that was more of a 50/50, half songs more him, half songs more me, but the songs are more collaborative. I was going to say, on this record, something that was sort of a new, because of the pandemic, the songs that we wrote were written mostly by whoever was singing. It’s a lot more compartmentalized, so the songs Keegan sings on were mostly written by him. The songs I’m singing on, I wrote most of those songs. It was mostly the pandemic and just not being able to get together with the band and jam on the songs led us to write that way. We did a lot more demoing and fleshing out the songs on Ableton and GarageBand. I think it led to the songs being a lot more fleshed out before we even played them as a band. In a way that was a cause of concern for us because we weren’t sure how exactly it would translate. So that was the big difference for this record, the process was very different from the previous records.
Heather: How long ago did you go into the studio to record the songs?
Keegan: We started recording in October 2020. The first weekend of recording was Halloween weekend, which is pretty cool to be in the studio on Halloween. This time the recording process was a lot more rigorous just because the songs are much longer than any album we’ve worked on. Personally I remember there was this one day where I was literally tracking guitar for twelve hours on one song. You know what I mean? Because you play through a seven and a half minute song and then you do that again. Same with the vocals. I remember it feeling very intense. I also think that’s what separates this recording process from others, it was just more intensive in that way, a lot of layering, but it was a cool way to experience the record because we were very much just soaking in it for a long time.
Nick: It was more immersive than any other process and really it was an immersion that lasted three years! Even after we recorded, the mixing process was rigorous, too. A lot of balancing. [laughs]
Heather: When you were writing the songs or even when you were in the studio recording them, do you feel there were any albums or artists that were a positive influence on you during that time?
Nick: Yeah, there’s a lot! A lot of production references, specifically I referenced Dave Fridmann a lot with [producer] Scoops Dardaris. He’s a producer that worked with Flaming Lips, he was a part of Mercury Rev. He recorded a lot of bands in the 2000s like MGMT. He just has a specific style of mixing. That was a big reference, I remember telling Scoops about the album Embryonic by the Flaming Lips, the drums are strong, they’re kinda loud and saturated on that record. Another record me and Keegan talked about a lot before we were even writing, we wanted to make a record that sounded like XTC ‘s Skylarking but I don’t really think it came out sounding like it, but that was an early thing that Keegan and I were inspired by. Just the maximalism of that record and how it is hi-fi, and we wanted to do something more hi-fi than past records.
To get more specific about Dave Fridmann, he has a style, particularly with the first two Mercury Rev records. There will often be one element in the recording that sounds like it is mixed too loud, or purposely imbalanced with the rest of the recording, and this is something that Scoops brought up a lot when mixing it, it was like an “a-ha!” moment. Me and him are really big on cohesion, and having some sort of guiding principle in production. I did a record with him where we made a rule against spacial effects. Where like on this record everything is spacially effected, you know, there is delay all over everything on this record. That was a big thing, he’s like, “Oh yeah there might be a part at the end of the song “Rats Come to Play” where the synth is really loud,” louder than most people would mix it, but he wanted to keep it that way. Or the end of “1,000 Engines” where the drums are really loud, we wanted to make it sound like the drums were swallowing everything else in the mix. Scoops is good at what he does and he can pull it off and it sounds like it was done with intention.
Heather: Yeah, I was thinking about the beginning of “Superdealer” where the sound in the background “WAHHHHH” comes forward, that was cool.
Nick: Yeah, that is the perfect example, that synth sound was mixed really loud [laughs] but we wanted it that way.
Heather: Keegan, what was influencing you at the time?
Keegan: Something that I was really influenced by, at least for writing at the time, was listening to music that was longer in length. I enjoyed the meditative sense of longer songs and just sitting in the space for a bit of time. Listening to a lot of tropicalia music that is very rich in melody. I was like how do I use this in music? I also think another thing that influenced the music for me was I was living in a small studio apartment during the pandemic. All of my life experience was being compressed and I had this need to create as big of a space as possible through music because I was being so compressed in my actual life so it was like a space to feel into.
Nick: You can hear our frustration almost, we’re like, “This fucking sucks and we want to make the biggest thing we can possibly make.” It really lasted the whole pandemic.
Heather: Some of the songs they feel like they are expanding out further and further until it is going to explode, in a good way.
Nick: We were definitely feeling explosive.
Heather: The lyrics for “Unknown Orchard” stuck with me a lot. The concept of the orchard, I feel like I was searching for what it could mean, but I also felt like I understood. Almost like you are trying to reach into your mind and your mind is the orchard and you are trying to figure out. I wondered what does the orchard represent to you.
Nick: I can elaborate a little bit. The idea of the unknown orchard is being sung from the perspective of a person bringing you on a tour through this place, that is a place that holds forbidden but important knowledge. I guess it is the archetype that comes up a lot, like the Garden of Eden, where there is some sort of forbidden knowledge of something. I guess that is where I was coming from, something that unlocks some sort of alien power or transcendental truth, something that may be powerful, something that a curious person would desire. But it could ultimately be a path that could be dark.
Heather: What was a memorable moment from recording?
Keegan: I remember there was one moment where the song “Forks in the Jailhouse” crashed Pro Tools because we had too many tracks on there. [laughs]
Nick: We maxed out the number of tracks that you can use. Everything on the record is multi-tracked. Nothing is tracked once, it is layered multiple times. I think we didn’t double track any drums but other than that, all the vocals are doubled, the synths and guitars are doubled, so many sounds that we had would be ten tracks. We were just maxing out Pro Tools.
Heather: It’s definitely one of those albums that you can sit and listen to the whole thing and you hear new shit every time you listen to it.
Keegan: Hell yeah. We both enjoy that in art.
Nick: There was a whole cycle, because it was such a long time, we would write the song and I’d be like I’m bored with it, we’ve been sitting on it for months, let me alter this little thing. Then after awhile it becomes fucked up because everything becomes a maze. A phrase that we used a lot was a maze, we wanted it to feel like you are going through a maze.
Heather: Yeah, it does feel like that, in a good way. The first time I deep listened, I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I’m excited to see it live, start to finish.
Keegan: One thing you asked about earlier was the art for the album. The album cover was a painting already in existence. We chose it after, it wasn’t made for the album. We saw the painting and felt it represented a lot of the elements of Holy Red Wagon.
Heather: Can you tell us more about the artist?
Keegan: We worked at the same place. I got to know them a bit and they mentioned they like to do art. I checked out their website. They had a drawing that ended up on our t-shirt. It was a drawing of their mom when she was six years old. We were looking for an album cover. We were trying to pick one out for six months.
Nick: After the record comes out I want to post some album covers that were rejected because there were so many.
Keegan: We found the candle one, the twin flame painting. I thought, what if we also have the single artwork by them, so it’s all cohesive? We found the ones we really enjoyed, and that’s how that came about. Their name is Hannah Alsdorf.
Heather: Where did the title Holy Red Wagon come from?
Nick: I felt like they are three different words that fit something synesthetic in my brain, I think the album sounds like a holy red wagon.
Keegan: The color red was an overarching color that we both got from the album.
Nick: We think very abstractly about stuff like that. Sometimes we will send each other a song and be like I want the song to feel like...
Keegan: ...purple [laughs]
Nick: ...red. [laughs] It makes sense to us. There is a reoccurring theme on the record about transportation. We have the song “Aerial Shipyard” which references a plane crash or some sort of cataclysmic event that happened in the sky. There’s “1,000 Engines” just anything that’s moving and taking me somewhere. I guess the wagon is rickety, in danger of falling apart and it’s moving...
Keegan: ...there’s a journey element...
Nick: ...and these three words were a guiding principle for the aesthetic of the record.
Heather: Holy Red Wagon is coming out on Topshelf. How has it been working with them?
Keegan: It’s been really good. They are passionate about what they do and very focused on the artists. They are super supportive and it feels like the record is in good hands. It’s been a good time.
Heather: Are there any other label-mates’ albums that stand out for you?
Keegan: Definitely Mid-Air Thief’s Crumbling. It’s a masterpiece, it’s a big one for us.
Nick: I like the Weatherday record they picked up. The Parannoul record, they’ve been putting out a lot of great shit. Emphasis on Mid-Air Thief. Whoever that is is a genius.
Heather: Are there any bands that you haven’t played with yet that you would love to play with?
Nick: …YES
[laughs]
Nick: It would be cool to play with Animal Collective.
Keegan: I would accept collaborating with Björk. Or play a festival that she was on. I think Mid-Air Thief would be amazing.
Heather: You should do a little Icelandic tour with Björk.
Keegan: [laughs] I’m down. If Björk ever looks at this, we are interested in working together.
Nick: Bill Callahan would be really cool. Mercury Rev, I would open for Mercury Rev, that would be sick. Yo La Tengo would be sick. Opening for any of these bands would be amazing.
Keegan: Another artist that was big for this record that we would love to play with is Stereolab.
Heather: Oh yeah. Stereolab is great. What have you been listening to lately?
Nick: There is always a rotation of different stuff. I’ve been getting into the Hoboken scene. Early Yo La Tengo and The Feelies. I’ve also been listening to a lot of folk stuff, like Incredible String Band, Mark Fry. Anything psychedelic folk, anything like that.
Keegan: Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Björk. A couple months ago I just started listening to her and I’ve had this second wave, and I’ve gone deeper into the live performances. I’m going through her albums chronologically. Bill Callahan, definitely. Aphex Twin. Japanese guitarist Masayoshi Takanaka. Water From Your Eyes. I’ve been listening to some Andy Shauf.
Nick: Pearls Before Swine I’ve been obsessed with. Another psychedelic folk guy. He does a rendition of “Suzanne,” the Leonard Cohen song, and he makes it stretched out and lush. He incorporates synthesizers, and field recordings, and sounds of the ocean and birds, but it’s mixed in so they’re folk songs that are really gorgeous.
Heather: Anything else you want to add?
Keegan: We’re playing a release show at the Hangar in Troy, NY this Friday, April 7th. We’re playing the album in full! We are going on a tour starting April 21st. Going to be doing nine or ten days. Shout out to Joe Taurone, he played all the drums on this record, it’s the most fucked up drumming I’ve ever heard. Shout out to Z, who is playing bass. Listen to the album.