by Benji Heywood (@benjiheywood)
The only thing certain is change. Ask Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham, the artists who comprise Chicago experimental pop band Finom, and they’ll tell you they’ve have had more of their fair share of it. The band’s career has already included two name changes undertaken for reasons outside of their control.
“You can always tell our long-term fans,” Cunningham deadpans on a recent Zoom call, “because they have three iterations of our t-shirts.”
Tough luck aside, Finom’s newest album, Not God, is the band’s boldest statement to date. The hooks pop, the guitars rock, and as always, the harmonies are impeccably sung. But what makes Not God stand apart from previous albums is the simmering angst beneath the songs. Earlier records hinted at it—one only needs to revisit their menacing cover of David Bowie’s “Girl Loves Me” to be reminded—but on Not God it feels directed. The juxtaposition between the band’s melodic sensibilities and subversive tendencies feels a little bit like they’re paying for gas while cutting your brakes. The moment you get comfortable, you’re in for something out of control.
Elevated by Jeff Tweedy’s pristine production and Spencer Tweedy’s kraut-inspired drumming, Cunningham and Stewart are free to take risks, a position that suits them and their music. The videos for the album’s advance singles reflect a similar truth: there’s a lot more going on with Finom than a cursory listen suggests. Post-Trash sat down with the duo for a glimpse into the making of the album and videos, working with Jeff Tweedy, plus their thoughts on how the power of community can combat postmodern cynicism.
Here’s our discussion, lightly edited for length and clarity.
photo: Anna Barlow
Post-Trash: The new album’s great!
Macie Stewart: Thanks!
Sima Cunningham: Thanks!
PT: Obviously y’all changed your name. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be the thousandth person to ask why, but I am curious if there have been any unexpected benefits from changing it.
MS: That's a really good question. I think the name change made the lack of attachment to feeling like we needed to keep doing the same thing even more of a reality. We can be whatever and do whatever we like.
PT: Sima, do you agree?
SC: It's an interesting question. Because it certainly hasn't made a lot of things easier [both laugh]. I think it illustrated our commitment to each other and commitment to this band. The person who wrote our most recent bio wrote that (being in Finom) is like standing at the base of an ever-erupting volcano. And I feel like that’s apt. We've committed to believing that we're going to do things on our own terms, no matter what.
PT: I found your bio intriguing. It starts with the word “no.” (reading) “Finom kicks things off by telling you no.” Yet the first thing we hear on the album is someone saying “Sure.” Is there a memory attached to that tiny clip of voice?
MS: That’s me! Like, “sure, I’ll do another take.”
SC: We got addicted to that little piece and felt like we had to keep it in there.
PT: Are y’all generally people who take things over and over in the studio? Or are you generally first or second take?
SC: Definitely the latter.
MS: We like to go with our first instinct, and our first emotional response. Past that it's easy to overthink.
SC: A lot of the performances on the record are some of the early takes. Even with overdubs Macie and I both like to move fast, because we capture something early on, and once it gets like overworked, you know, it's like over-kneaded dough. It loses something.
PT: Y'all seem to have a very strong sense of identity as musicians. I'm curious how that interacted with having an album produced by somebody like Jeff Tweedy whose name has a lot of connotations that comes with it. Obviously, if you put “produced by Jeff Tweedy” on a record, people are going to perceive the music they're about to hear within that context. How did you weigh the pros and cons of those expectations?
MS: We both make music with Jeff and we both love Jeff’s music in general and his outside-the-box approach. Working with someone like Jeff is exciting for us. It creates another person that the both of us can bounce off of, and come together with, or tear apart from. So, with Jeff, he was able to take us outside some of the things we tend to towards.
SC: Both of us have been deeply attuned to all the things that Jeff does for almost his whole career. I started listening to Wilco when I was a teenager, and I think we understand the shapes and movements of his art, but also know what excites him about art that is not his own, about music that is not his own. We wanted (a producer) who both knows how to respect the core of a song and make it shine in its most brilliant capacity, but then also knows how to be adventurous with the approach. Those were the core things that we wanted to pursue and Jeff is really sharpened in that. We hoped he would help bring out in us a sense of confidence in our course. I think he did that.
PT: Not God has an angst to it I don’t remember much of your previous work having. Am I off base here?
MS: There’s a healthy amount of angst, for sure. Sima, you want to start this?
SC: Not God was written in the context of the last four years and in response to living through 2019-2020. It was an abrupt change from constantly moving, touring, traveling and feeling ungrounded. Then all of that abruptly stopped. There's a big backdrop of angst on the whole record against people who hold power, whether it's holding power in the country, or holding power in our lives, or wrestling with our own feelings about power and who should be in control. There's a lot of fury unleashed through the songs. Right now, we're trying to figure out how to balance fury and joy and hold it all within our body. This record in particular, maybe more than any record that we've ever done, was about trying to hold all that we are inside of us. How do you hold power in your life? How do you hold time in your life? How do you hold space? How do you make sure the oppressive forces don't completely colonize your brain?
PT: Did you come to any conclusions about what the answer to those questions are?
MS: I don't know if there are any answers. I mean, I think that there's definitely pathways that opened through making these songs and thinking about (questions of power). If you're being true to what you're doing and making sure that you are aware of the power that you hold as well, then your power can’t be corruptible.
SC: I think people is the answer. You find solace in people and you find solace in friendship and you find power in friendship, you find connectivity. The antidote to a lot of woes is connecting with people around you and understanding what they're going through. That's why I feel like there's so much of this album that’s about that balance between trying to cherish people and hold on to them and find out ways to grow through the people that are around you, but also, the intense pain that can come from like loneliness.
PT: Can you give us an example of how the album facilitated that sort of connectivity?
SC: Definitely through making the music videos. By collaborating with all these incredible artists, we got to expand the world of this album into a cinematic universe.
PT: The videos really are something to see. The amount of care and consideration put into them comes through in a way that enriches the songs. Any fun stories from behind the scenes?
MS: “Haircut” was the first one we filmed this year, but “Not God” we filmed last year before Sima had her baby.
SC: I was super pregnant on that shoot so we had this concept of Sima the Pregnant Cult Leader. We filmed it in January in the one really tall building right next to Wrigley Field. Luckily there was a bed in the house. I was lying down for most of the shoot. Then I would come to set and channel a cult leader.
PT: Any specific cult leader?
SC: Well, we had that cult leader for a president…
PT: Did either of you grow up in a hyper religious household?
SC: I grew up highly anti-religious. Lately I've tried to make more space for respecting the beauty of belief. I don't know if I have any respect for organized religion still, but I have a profound respect for people's personal relationships with god. Both of us grew up when Bush was president and evangelicals were taking over the country. Obviously, we're still living with the repercussions of that where Christian ideology is creeping into all facets of our life and literally trying to turn our whole country into a cult.
PT: What would the core tenants of the Cult of Finom be?
MS: Everyone would have to take a probiotic in the morning.
SC: Group dinners at night.
MS: With no phones.
SC: And everyone would have to take a walk together after dinner.
PT: It’s obvious that people are very important to y’all. It makes me think about Chicago, how so many bands I’ve known from Chicago are so positive about the Chicago scene. Why is that do you think?
SC: This kind of connects to your video question. When we filmed the video for “Cyclops,” Macie had gotten to know Missy from Mannequin Pussy really well on tour. So, it was fun to have her come out and direct the video for “Cyclops.” When we were all talking on the phone, trying to figure out how to cast the video, we thought about the Chicago scene. The guy who played Cyclops is a guy named Tali who I grew up with. He used to host the teen open mic in Chicago and play in a bunch of bands and is a semi pro wrestler now. It goes to show the incredible culture here, and how livable it is here, and how everybody is in everybody else’s orbit.
MS: I was at Pitchfork Music Fest last weekend and I met a jewelry maker and it turns out we went to the same grade school! Chicago is one of those places where you are constantly orbiting wider orbits within the city’s creative community.
PT: Why do you think that is?
SC: It’s a result of artists who lived here who are our parents age and the generation after them choosing to live and raise kids here. There's a lot of children of artists who have grown up here in Chicago and are continuing to grow up here. It’s completely normal for us to hang out with people in their 60s, 40s, 20s, teenagers, and even kids, now that I have one. It creates one cohort of multiple generations connected on multiple levels.
PT: Are your parents musicians?
MS: My mom is a career musician who does piano bar and teaches music at the Old Town School of Folk Music. She's been playing professionally since she was nine years old. And then my dad is an enthusiast. He's not professional, but he’s getting into modular synths.
SC: My dad plays music; he has a band and plays like once a month. But he had a band in the 80s. And then my mom is a painter.
PT: One thing I think about as culture passes from generation to generation is the position we’re in now where everything feels like a reboot, sequel or revival of something that happened 30 or 40 years ago. To be clear, I don’t put Finom in this category, but it does feel like generally culture is stuck. Is culture stuck?
MS: I don't feel it being stuck. There's stuff happening in our scene that does feel new and interesting, or like different combinations of things. Part of it is that we have access to everything all the time. So, a wide majority of stuff that we are coming in contact with are variations on similar themes, but every once in a while, I'll come across something that I'm like, Where the hell did that come from? However, while it may not feel stuck, it is hard to actually comb through and find the things that are truly new and innovative. Algorithmic technologies are giving us the same thing all the time. When you only encounter the same thing, because that's all that's being given to you, it’s maybe not that weird that it’s harder to find stuff outside the norm.
SC: It’s kind of overwhelming, on so many levels, not just on a musical or cultural level. Now everyone has to basically develop a really intense filter for any kind of information, right? We’re now all culling our own information from news and the internet. But the truth is that we have very limited tools or direction on how to program our brains to understand everything that we're seeing. To the idea of music being stuck, they always say the first 25 years of your life is when music hits the deepest part of your brainwaves. I feel like my hard drive ran out of space like 10 years ago. It's for that reason that I spend tons of time in silence because otherwise I like would not be able to make room for my own creative output.
PT: How are you able to drown out the noise?
SC: It's challenging because there's just so much available now where before there was such a simplicity to music. That's something we talk about all the time with our own music, and certainly talked about with Jeff. Simplicity is the best, right? Music that is uncomplicated is wonderful. It's one of the challenges of our time that there's very little that is simple and uncomplicated that’s not going to call back to something that's been done already. And that's no one's fault. That's just reality. Even if you're bending into microtones, there's only so many waves that we can hear. There's only so many ways that cords connect together and make us feel gooey inside. There's only so many rhymes in the world. And, you know, Bob Dylan probably rattled them all off 50 years ago, and now we're all just trying to rework them.
MS: Having 100 years or more of recorded music that you can go back to… it’s such a huge factor. But we haven’t been able to do that until very recently. Now we have these concrete examples of what's already been done. It makes it a little trickier to do something new.
SC: One of the challenges that I struggle with more philosophically is how we’ve set up everything in our lives to let machines do the thinking for us. It happens with music selection, with information selection. It’s sad to be in an era where people sunset the part of their brain that makes their own cultural choices. People deferring to the machine because they think it knows what they want instead of going out and seeking for themselves, that’s heartbreaking.
PT: Who or what is not God?
MS: That’s a great question.
SC: Certainly not that orange fuck face. But that should be obvious by now, shouldn’t it?