Q&A: The Strumbellas Welcome Radical Self Acceptance on New EP ‘Burning Bridges Into Dust’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KELSEY PECCHIA ☆
THE STRUMBELLAS EXPLORE AN ELECTRIC VULNERABILITY—Their new EP, Burning Bridges Into Dust, is a six track journey that dives into the band’s rock and roll side while being emotionally raw and honest. The single “Maybe It’s Me” dives into the self awareness and fear of growing older, facing your mistakes and forgiving yourself for them all at once. The search for radical self acceptance on this project doesn’t end here—it takes shape as The Strumbellas come to life with an edgier sound.
The folk-rock band from Toronto, Canada started their journey in 2008. Meeting on Craigslist, the band quickly took off with a passion for music and performing live. Playing anywhere and everywhere, the band’s love for the craft hasn’t changed. This new EP exudes confidence, while maintaining the honesty, passion and self-exploration the group has always poured into their music.
After many years of honing their creative process, The Strumbellas reveal a side to them that leans into a darker tone, while staying true to the folk roots they have always carried. Speaking with David Ritter, the man behind the piano, we get an even deeper sense of how the group’s perspective has shifted. Truly working as a collective, they have grown more and more collaborative, creating this EP as something bigger than themselves. Growing wiser, releasing control and accepting yourself are all tough things to do, but this group welcomes them with open arms on their new project.
Heading out on tour soon, The Strumbellas crave the connection music brings. For everything from their tour to the process of creating this EP, read below for our conversation with The Strumbellas’ David Ritter.
LUNA: Thank you so much for chatting with The Luna Collective today! For some readers who may be new fans, is there anything that you want them to know about your music or about how you guys started?
RITTER: The band met on Craigslist a number of years ago. I think even just meeting on Craigslist, will give you a sense of the timeline. We started out playing street festivals, farmers markets, I mean, small gigs and then just started recording music, touring Canada, and the rest is history.
LUNA: The new EP, Burning Bridges Into Dust, just came out and congratulations are in order! Was there anything that inspired you guys when approaching this project?
RITTER: We've been interested in something a little more hard-edged, a little more rock and roll than our normal, more laid-back kind of sound. Generally, we don't tend to go into a record with an idea in mind or a concept. We tend to sort of chase each song to where it's going. We tend to be obsessed with making the coolest songs possible, regardless of whether they have… You know, like, I play piano. “Is there going to be keyboard on the song?” I don't know. We're just trying to make it the coolest song it could possibly be. Then at the end of it, hopefully the songs still kind of hang together and make sense as a group.
LUNA: How did you go into creating this project? Was it any different than ways you've approached things before?
RITTER: Our process seems to be getting more and more collaborative with everyone in the band, helping out with songwriting and pitching musical lyrical ideas. For this record, we wanted to work with a producer named Chad Copelin. He has a studio in Norman, Oklahoma, so we all flew down to Norman, a place none of us had ever been, and it was great. He has his studio, it has a kind of vibe, and the town is this great, laid back American town. It was a great three weeks of just exploring sounds in the studio and again, chasing the sound to find exactly where the sound wants to go.
LUNA: In terms of putting yourselves in a new environment, was that a new experience? Or do you all do that normally when you want to work with people, do you just put yourself in a new place and let that fuel the project?
RITTER: We tend to kind of bounce around. We're so democratic and we're so collectivist in the way that we work that we often find working with a producer helps to give the project some coherence and helps settle debates and things like that. We often want the producer to have their best foot forward, so that often involves going to their studio or working where they are most comfortable, where they have all their tools set up just how they like them. We'll often travel to make a record because we want to work with someone specific and we want them to be as comfortable and as effective as possible.
LUNA: This project has more of an edgy, rock and roll tone. Was there a track that was the most fun, for you or for the band collectively, to play around with this sound on?
RITTER: I'm sure you would get different answers from each member if you asked, but it was really fun making “Hard Lines.” That's a song that it's almost like, it shouldn't work. It has an off-kilter beat, and it has a lot of space, actually. There's a lot of places where you're not hearing all of us play together and yet it sort of propulsively moves forward. It was really fun seeing that song take shape. It was written actually in Nashville. It traveled from Nashville back to Toronto, where we're working on it, in the jam space and making demos. And then, of course, we bring it to Oklahoma. So it was fun seeing that song go on its journey.
LUNA: Is there anything that you may have learned about yourself, musically or otherwise, while creating this project? Did it push you in any way that maybe other projects haven't?
RITTER: A lot of it is about learning to let go. I remember making early albums and I would be very specific about exactly this vocal harmony because that's what I wanted to sing; and exactly this organ part because I worked hard on that organ part and it fits exactly the way I wanted it to. Especially as I keep saying we work together in this collective way, so you may feel strongly about a lyric or a chorus melody, but it doesn't always go your way. With my own parts, my own vocal or keyboard parts, I'm increasingly learning to let go and let the producer or other people in the band see their vision and not necessarily be so attached to what I'm doing and my little contribution. I think that's something that I'm learning with this project.
LUNA: Is there anything that you or the band hope that people take away from this new project?
RITTER: I wouldn't say there's any particular message or feeling. I'm sure this would vary depending on who you asked in the band. Our singer, Jimmy, has said that when he hears the songs all together, they feel thematically a lot about accepting yourself and learning to let go of expectations. I think that's a nice takeaway from listening to the album, but mostly I think that what people get out of the songs and what they get out of our show is out of our hands. You work obsessively on writing and recording music; Every bar, every tempo and lyric decision is sweated over, and then the songs sort of leave you. They leave the nest and become, hopefully, part of someone's life. But in what way? It's sort of no longer up to you. I love that about it, and of course I hope people will come to the show and sing along and dance and have the best night of their month. I hope that these new songs are part of that, but I mostly hope they find a small place in people's lives, wherever they're needed.
LUNA: Is there a song on the EP that's your favorite, shamelessly, that you can't stop listening to, and why?
RITTER: It's gonna change. It changes all the time. I think right now it might be “Maybe It's Me.” That's a song that I connect with. I happened to be in the writing session that day again. We all do the writing, so not everyone is there in the room for every song, but I happened to be there, And it was written with a good friend of mine, so I feel sentimental about it. It didn't make the cut for the last album and usually that means the song is not gonna make it past the demo stage. But it really stuck around, and it really kept insisting upon itself in a way where I couldn't stop thinking about it. A couple other people in the band couldn't stop thinking about it, and so I'm happy it's here. I'm happy we're playing it on stage. It's a bit of a sentimental favorite.
LUNA: You all start a tour in a few weeks. What about touring are you most looking forward to?
RITTER: I have two answers to what I'm looking forward to for the tour. When you get the opportunity to put a tour like this together, you really get a chance to refine your set. You play shows every night, there's no better way for a band to sound good and get really good than to go on tour and to play four or five times a week. I'm obsessed with the setlist, I'm obsessed with the song transitions and lighting, and I'm pouring over all this stuff right now; I'm just really excited to get to make this the best show it's ever been. It's a little different, like in the summer or in different seasons in the band's career where we're playing a few festivals here and there, or we might go up for a weekend, and then we have the next weekend off. When you go on a tour like this, you really get a chance to dial everything in. I'm really excited to see how good we can make this show.
I think the thing I'm most looking forward to is just seeing everybody. There's something about making a record that can be kind of insular and lonely. Sometimes it's just you and a guitar, or you and a piano working on a verse, or you're writing the song with two or three other people. You're recording with just your bandmates in a room with no windows, and then to be able to take the songs out into the world and see hundreds of people at the show and connect with everybody—that's a really wonderful part of this job that we get to do.
LUNA: Is there anything else that's coming up with The Strumbellas that you're looking forward to that you want to share with us and our readers?
RITTER: We are recording more music. There may be some more songs out sooner than you might think.
