by John Glab (@glab.ii)
Las Vegas sasscore, dance punk hybrid band Spring Breeding were touring across the country in late August and early September, along with the Los Angeles easy listening band Lorraine. The tour was in support of their ever-dynamic new album Backflip Soundtrack, which accentuated the sass elements in the deep grooves and introduced screaming vocals, which feels like it has turned their sound into an even more freaked out version of screamo.
I got to see them play for a second time in Iowa City, two years after they first came through, at a new house venue that got so bumping it resulted in a shattered window, along with everyone jumping and dancing so hard you could see the floor boards bending from underneath. After their set, drummer Tyler Gutleben, synth player Caress Silverii, and bassist Dustin Scott lingered around to talk about some of the influences that went into the sound on Backflip Soundtrack.
photo credit: Elly Hoffmaier
John Glab: The album is really crazy. It’s giving me all sorts of different vibes with, you know, late 2010’s post-punk, mixed with Lightning Bolt, kinda mixed with like I Set My Friends On Fire in some ways now with the screaming vocals. How did these different parts come together?
Tyler Gutleben: Honestly yeah, those bands like Lightning Bolt and I Set My Friends On Fire, it is like a whole early 2000s thing with the sass thing. We would just listen to a lot of Lightning Bolt, Don Cab(allero), and Albatross and all that, and we really like heavy music a lot with screaming, like screamo and hardcore and all this stuff. We wanted to basically just make hardcore music but with synths, without guitars, you know? Cause we like bands like The Locust, and they have a lot of synths, but they also have guitars, and we were wondering what it would sound like if it was just synths, you know? That’s pretty much how we got to this sound.
Glab: It’s kinda like what MSPAINT did. They wanted to do a hardcore band, but didn’t want the guitars.
Tyler: Yeah pretty much. It also kinda stemmed from like, in Vegas the screamo scene is really big and that’s kinda what we kept playing with. We used to not scream, we used to be more like a dance punk type band. It was just really fun. We really became a product of our environment and started doing that, and it was really fun.
Glab: That’s where the screaming was introduced on the new album?
Tyler: Yeah, just from playing with all these kinds of screamo bands, we were like we should try that, it seems like it’d be nice.
Glab: Specifically, what do you think about I Set My Friends On Fire?
Caress Silverii: I love I Set My Friends On Fire. That album with the narwhal on it is literally one of my favorite albums. I love sasscore and the whole genre and every type of thing like that.
Glab: The HxC 2-Step and the likes.
Caress: Yes, I love that one.
Glab: What do you think of the song they did with Smosh?
Tyler: I love Sex-Ed. That probably did something to my brain when I was a child. That’s probably how I ended up here, cause I loved that.
Glab: In a good or bad way?
Tyler: Well, that’s up for you to decide.
Glab: What’s it like living in Las Vegas? Cause obviously we all know the casinos and sin or whatnot.
Caress: I think it’s chill. I think it’s a young crowd because there’s a lot of schools there. We have an arts school there. So, it’s a lot of high school bands we end up playing with, and they end up moving, so every year it’s like a whole scene reset. But it’s really fun. We have a cute little scene there that’s really community oriented and nice. We don’t even go by the casinos or anything, so it’s like it doesn’t even exist unless it gets brought up.
Glab: Is it kind of like its own separate thing? From what I heard it all started around the casinos and then normal service industries came up to support the city and the people working there.
Caress: Yeah, the Strip and everything with Vegas is in the middle, and then everything else is around it.
Glab: What about all the screamo kids in Las Vegas? What’s more of that scene like, and how’s it like playing with them?
Tyler: That whole scene? They’re just really into it. They really love it. They’re all super young and get super excited. Half of them don’t know how to play their instruments, but it sounds great.
Glab: That’s real screamo.
Tyler: Yeah seriously. No yeah, they’re really great over there. They have a lot of fun with it. We like playing with them.
Dustin Scott: They’ve been really receptive to us too. As soon as we started kind of introducing the screaming everyone showed up. Everyone invited us to come out to more shows. They’re all homies now.
Tyler: That was kind of a surprising thing because we know what we’re doing is a little off kilter, like it is a little niche, and especially even going on this tour outside of Vegas, we weren’t sure. We know in Vegas they like it and have fun with it, but going on this tour and playing with a lot more bands like that we weren’t sure if they were gonna go ‘what is this?’ and hate it. But it’s been a good reception, so it’s been really nice because we really weren’t sure.
Dustin: I know, shout out Chicago, oh my god! They went ballistic.
Caress: Also Iowa City, this place was so cute, so sick. I did not expect people to remember us from two years ago here, not gonna lie.
Glab: I was really excited when I saw your guys’ names come up on the poster again. I forget the name, but it was a Seattle band with this guy Crow who’s from here.
Caress: Yeah Miscomings. We toured with them two years ago and came here. It was such a great tour, and we’re just so happy to be back.
Glab: Nice, tour has gone well?
Caress: Very well. The expectations were there, but for everyone to be so welcoming into this new scene that we’re kind of in now, it’s great.
Tyler: Touring with Lorraine is nice because they’re all really hot and beautiful and amazing.
Caress: I know, Lorraine came through Las Vegas and we got to play with them, and we wanted to be friends with them so bad. It happened and we’re doing a tour with them and it’s just been a dream and everything.
Glab: Anything else you guys wanna say?
Dustin: There’s more coming though. It’s not over yet.
Tyler: Make a band. Start a band.
Caress: Throw away the guitars. Get synths.
Glab: But bass is still cool?
Tyler: Yes, bass is still cool.
Dustin: Yes, keep bass, keep bass. You need bass.