Written by: Dave Cantrell

2020 was this. 2020 was that. However one fills in those blanks one thing it profoundly lacked was any of the clarity – visual or otherwise – one would assume from a year with that numeric. That said, in a development that was both gratifying and, somehow, not surprising, musicians stepped up. What in the earliest days of the pandemic was a merciful offering of livestreamed events and a gradual accumulation of live-in-studio video performances, it took almost no time for the wider community to patch in to the yearning current of passion and need – the very thing that was most critically impacted by the shutdown was, of course, live music – and begin transmitting a loving, committed, and eventually quite prolific series of remotely broadcast performances that were essentially a much needed fix to the music-starved masses. At the same time, artists and bands found a perhaps greater urgency in pursuing their recording plans as per scheduled. In many cases sessions were recorded basically via satellite, each band member recording in their own home studio and sending their contributions in via email. In the rare cases, as it was for Ganser, bands were actually able to assemble in safe studios and either record full albums or, at the very least, live sessions in support of their latest LP. In Ganser’s case, their newest – and most accomplished – album was already recorded and, while the standard route of live shows etc to promote their latest work was out of the question, they were able to produce live sessions to boost the profile of what they knew in their collective bones was their breakout full-length. In other words, they made the best of an historically challenging situation and, as it happens, triumphed beyond what your sharpest oddsmaker could have predicted. Garnering multiple “best-of” accolades (not least here at SEM), 2020, as it rather perversely turned out, was a banner year from the Chicago-band-that-could. So it was that we sat down via Skype with bassist/conceptualist Alicia Gaines for a year-end interview detailing the history of the band, the challenges this last year (and the challenges of race and gender) presented, and the process that has made Ganser one of the most consistently admired ‘new’ bands of the last couple years.  [feature photo: Kirsten Miccoli]

SEM: It’s hard to think of a band that’s had a better year than Ganser, especially given the plague. Obviously being able to tour would have helped get Just Look At That Sky  more ‘out there’ but Ganser being on Felte seems to have really helped. 

AG: Yeah, it helped a lot. I mean, it’s a nuts and bolts thing. They have global distribution, that helped us a lot, and, y’know, we just were surely lucky in that the album was already in the can in June of 2019 and we were going to go to SXSW and do all these things. We looked at our overhead and it was pretty low, it wasn’t like we were releasing a record on a large label, a large indie label or any of those things so it was just this right mix that when the calamity happened, to everyone, I think it went better for the record than we could have predicted insofar as we’re not worrying. That’s kind of the biggest blessing, not having that hanging over our heads. 

SEM: Right. Well, the response to the record really speaks to the quality of it, and it speaks to – not to downplay what Ganser’s accomplished heretofore – to the quantum leap feel of that record. It kind of feels as if you went from being kind of ‘new’ on the scene to being a major band.

AG: Well, it’s a little weird for us this year because the plan was, we felt, that we might be support on someone’s tour, that would be really great for us, but I think it’s strange when you’re actually ‘in the project’ so to speak because you’re always a little bit ahead of when an album’s released. We released our first record [Odd Talk – ed.] in 2018 but by the time we were releasing it that summer we were already writing Just Look At That Sky and then JLATS was recorded over the spring and summer of 2019 but those songs were written at the end of 2018 beginning of 2019 so it’s so strange to have these songs out now and to have people reacting to them and we’re already writing the next one. It’s strange, we’re living in two different spots in time, really. 

SEM: Right, there’s this time warp factor. I mean, it’s kind of always been that way due to promotional considerations but I’d guess it’s been more disorienting this year. What are your plans in terms of going into the studio to record the next album this coming year? Given the type of schedule you just outlined, being that far ahead in the process would indicate that, if it’s possible, you’re ready.

AG: Yeah, we’re going to go into the studio some time this [coming] year, we’re not quite sure when. We’re still in the writing process for the next record but to your point, I think that the time after you’ve written something is just as important when you’re writing on a group project and everyone’s coming in from their own direction and putting their own stuff into the pile, sometimes you don’t really realize what you have so you can kind of look at the finished product and kick the tires a little bit, so I assume we’re going to have to go through that for the next one. I think for us, it was just fortuitous that what we came up with this time around was essentially meeting everyone where they were.  I think this next time around it’s going to be us figuring out how to write our ways out of [the lockdown], because everyone’s going to be very tired of this moment once it’s over. Y’know those people we know from going to shows that we consider acquaintances but we’re not really close friends, we don’t see each other outside that one activity? The next time we see that person, whether it’s a year from now, six months from now whatever, I imagine we’re not going to want to go over how we’ve spent the last horrifying year and a half. We’re gonna want to just get on with it. 

SEM: Right, right, but it’s going to be weird though, it’s going to be like this strange rebirth and it’s almost like there’s going to be nothing else to talk about. There’ll just be this giant void behind us filled with staying home and wearing masks and hoping we don’t get sick anyway, everyone’s had the same experience which is both extraordinary and banal as fuck.

AG: Exactly. And I don’t know about you but I don’t want to listen to an album next year that’s about being lonely, or being isolated. I’m like ‘I’m sorry, I lived that, I’m done with that.’ But I think it’s about the four of us looking around us, what are we connecting to that potentially could be something that we wanna hear. Over the next couple of years as we write it, release it, play it out hopefully, we’re all just hoping that we stay sane. I mean, you can imagine, half this whole thing, we shot all we’d planned on video projector four or five days before lockdown. SXSW had just been cancelled, it was that weird window where it wasn’t here yet, it was on the West Coast but South By just got cancelled, it’s probably coming here, crap, I’m going to grab my phone, shoot the rest of the video really quick and that was it. And so, the first month, two months, we had to shift the record’s release back a month and we had to constantly check in with each other, ‘are you okay?’ In this band we’ve got two that could work from home but Nadia works in television, she works for Shout Out in Chicago and, y’know, film sets shut down immediately. So Nadia was out of a job, and Charlie is a bartender, and, well..so it was all so strange to announce the record while we were all just making sure that we were holding it together personally. We only started getting back into the same room together in, gosh, maybe May or June?, and started to play those songs [from Just Look at that Sky]. It was kind of wild because some of those songs we’d never played live before so those livestreams are the first time anyone’s ever seen them live, which is kind of nuts.

SEM: Well, it didn’t show, from what I’ve seen anyway. So, reverting to an interview staple, and because I really don’t know the story myself, let’s talk Ganser’s history. It’s been the four of you the whole time, right?

AG: Actually, it started with just Nadia and myself, we originally had a different guitarist because it was just a weird fit. We were still just trying to figure out how we wanted to sound. Charlie and Brian joined us in 2015, in the fall. But yeah, it was originally just Nadia and I at art school and when we found the guys, it was funny, Brian had seen us live at a show when we were still using a drum machine, and it was a festival, an indoor festival so he saw us play with an empty drum kit behind us then the next day we got the most polite email saying ‘If you ever need a drummer, I’m around’ so he just…got in. We got lucky. Then we found Charlie – if you can imagine this – on Craigslist [laughter]. 

SEM: Ha! Well, that’s modern and believable. 

AG: Yeah, it’s something that, I think, accounts for the randomness of the group. We all have overlapping interests but I don’t know if naturally….Charlie joined the band when he was 21, and I don’t know if we would have been in the same circles to have organically met each other.

SEM: Right. But, I gotta say, sonically, that’s a real crucial linchpin. I watched that recent live film, which was nearly an hour long set, and I thought ‘He’s gifted.’ I mean you all are but there are some guitarists that are kind of nonchalant with what’s actually an extraordinary talent, but more than anything else I was impressed with the sort of intuitive musical conversation you’re all able to have with each other. So I don’t know if you all were feeling any rustiness but if so it didn’t show. It was great! 

AG: Aw, thanks. I think we were just comfortable because we recorded it in the same studio we recorded the record in, so unlike, say, a certain festival where we had to go into their studio, it was in the same place we recorded both our records in, with that engineer, and also the same cameraman that shot the videos that we directed. So we were so comfortable with everything it made it easy to just run that set twice and use one of the two tracks of audio but, yeah, I think a ‘conversation’ is a really good way to talk about it. We always talk about tension with our music, and torque. We really love a lot of early bands, proto-punk bands that use that kind of syncopation, that kind of very simple relationships to get their sound across. If you think about ESG and bands like that, there’s only a couple elements to the song, and yes you can make a more complicated song, of course, but I want it to be like two things fighting each other at the core of everything. Usually bass and guitar but, y’know, I think everything kind of works into that with Ganser.

SEM: As you were saying that – and choose your metaphor, bells were going off, angels were singing – it made complete sense to me in the context of your songs and the structure of their dynamic. 

AG: There’s two things with that. I joke and describe our dynamic on stage as sort of like the Charlie Brown Christmas Special where all the kids are dancing on stage and each of them has their own very particular dance that they’re doing, separately, right next to each other, and also, as we’ve been doing these remixes and we’ve had to send over all the individual stems for all the songs I think that’s something too that whenever we were listening to them to make sure they’re all good to go and I’d listen to all those parts and think they make absolutely no sense by themselves, kind of like you take away one thing and the wheels fall off. We’re kind of leaning on each other like a house of cards. So that’s something really exciting about getting those remixes back, realizing that if you take out one of the things – completely – then build it around one of the other parts you can make a song that sounds so different than the original song. I didn’t think we were going to be good remix fodder but it’s actually working out okay.

SEM: Well, by your description before your sound would lend itself, I think, to being fairly decent remix fodder but in any case, tell me about this remix project. 

AG: Yeah, well, it was something that we’d never done before but, y’know, we figured, everyone’s at home [resigned chuckle], and it would be very cool to reach out to some folks. We’re keeping them secret until we’ve released them all but it’s people that we met either through being on Twitter or through playing a show together before or, with Andy Bell from Ride [using his remix alias GLOK, Bell did the remix of “Bags For Life”], we both played the Riot Fest last year and met him briefly but this was really just a cold email [laughs], 

SEM: Yeah, I was going to visit that particular remix, it’s brilliant. He really took it unexpected places but in a delirious, very enchanted kind of way. It doesn’t sound ‘Ganseresque’ and yet it completely sounds Ganseresque, if in a kind of dream state. 

AG: Yeah, he kind of took off the corners. [laughs]

SEM: Ah, right. Sanded it down a little bit. 

AG: Yeah, it is brilliant. When we first got it, we were, y’know, kind of nervous to open it the first time, but it was really cool to see what he did with that, and the fact that he plays some guitar on it too. It’s been really fun hearing what everyone’s been sending back to us and I think, for us, it’s going to be really fun to, once a month, surprise everybody with a new one.

SEM: Sure, and it’s certainly a pragmatic way to stay in people’s consciousness as well. 

AG: Yeah, yeah, I’m not going to lie, there was a little bit of that too, it buys us a little time because we’re not able to go into the studio safely, so. 

SEM: Right, exactly. So…songwriting process. I kind of catch stick for this but I’m always fascinated by process, and especially with JLATS, if only because there seems to be this increasing complexity in your sound, which of course there would be, you’re an evolving band, so, is it the usual thing? Someone has a riff, or a nubbin of an idea, do the words come after a song’s structure is in place, is there some idea of what the song’s going to be about or what area of consciousness it’s going to explore? Something like that? 

AG: Yeah, it tends to start individually or with two people, and like I said we’re all pretty different people. The way I explain it is there are bands that the four of us love, there are bands that one of us passionately loves that someone else loathes, so we have a wide swath of stuff that we’re into. So what happens is that when we all submit individual demos they just go to a vote. It has to fit all of us to work in that way. And sometimes they’re full songs, like “Emergency Equipment and Exits” was literally me going ‘Y’know, I’ve never written a song that’s fast and then slow, let’s try that out’ so something like “Bags For Life,” that song started by coming across something on an internet forum where people were speculating ‘What would the end of the world look like on the internet? If there were a live thread going, what would that look like?’ and we were kind of living it this year so…you take an idea like that to the group and people kind of build off of it. And thankfully our skills are so different – Nadia and I collaborate on lyrics, sometimes, as in “Bag For Life,” I wrote that but realized I wanted Nadia’s voice. That was something that took us a while to figure out. I think we were starting to on the last record [Odd Talk from 2018 – ed.] and I think we’ve really figured it out on this record. Having two vocalists is tricky but you have to look at it as tools, do you want a screwdriver or do you want a hammer? So we traded a lot. It’s really what suits the song and we’re just lucky to have two different tools instead of having to rely on one person’s voice. Nadia is really into poetry so a lot of her focus goes into that, Brian is a really strong songwriter and can put down a solid base level demo that everybody can build off of – he’s engineered a lot of the demos we’ve done before going into the studio – and Charlie’s jazz-trained, and can improvise and think about melody in some really surgical ways. Sometimes I’ll have a demo or Brian will and Charlie will come in, well, on “Bags For Life” for example, he came over to specifically help me arrange the horn section – it was the first time we’d had experimented instrumentation like that – and I had the basic version of it, I had three horns but he helped me make it ten horns. So that’s what we’ve had to figure out. What is everybody good at, what is everybody not good at, then run toward what makes you happy and away from what somebody else is better at than you are. It’s been a learning process but it’s really nice to have so many colors to your palette.

SEM: OK, so, I’m going to switch gears?

AG: OK.

SEM: Because of the type of year this has been, in terms of social tensions, racial tensions, ongoing #metoo tensions, obviously it would be impossible for, well, for any of us, but especially for those that are closer to some of those contentious edges than for instance, well, I am, for it not to be a lot more acute in their lives, and that would include you. I mean, I’m kind of tip-toeing up to the starting line of a type of questioning but how has the racial justice movement impacted, if it has at all, your relationship to the music industry, and if you could, what’s your perspective on that just generally?

AG: Well, it’s been really interesting, because obviously it doesn’t just affect my life in terms of the music industry, it affects all areas of my life, my personal life, my job atmosphere etc. Nadia said something really interesting to me last summer, during the height of the album campaign, ‘You’re handling this stress amazingly well’ and I think the reason why I was doing OK that particular day – it’s not like I haven’t had bad days – is because, when you have always known it’s been bad, and the world goes ‘No, everything’s fine,’ in some ways it’s worse when everyone’s going ‘Oh my god, things are terrible!’ and you go ‘I know, I’ve been telling you that for years.’ So that’s where I think I’m living in the moment. I realized something else this year…our manager said something to me like ‘You’re a weird looking band,’ and I had to sit with that for a second before going ‘Y’know what, yeah.’ Some editors get sent a press release with our faces on it, they don’t necessarily get a vibe like they would with, say, four white dudes in flannel. There aren’t equal parallels with other bands that we look like, so that’s been interesting for us in a year when we’ve had press like we’ve had, the coverage from overseas was particularly interesting – and I’ve heard this from other bands – that they’re going to be a bit more open to people of color in rock, where here the press tends to be more gatekeeper-ish where boxes are checked by having people [of color] in other genres but not specifically rock. For us, we can’t let it affect what we think about ourselves. If somebody doesn’t cover this record I hope they regret it when the next one comes out, definitely. Because with other bands that are in similar positions as us you find that the effort that labels put into you, into getting word of the record out there, it’s not a meritocracy. If people, consciously or unconsciously, exclude folks it does have consequences in terms of how many people get to hear the record. It’s been great that folks have been able to find the record toward the end of this year so in the end I think it’s going to be great. I think my biggest concern right now is that touring support is a big thing on the table for us. Everyone’s looking around saying ‘When touring comes back it’s going to be very competitive.’ Obviously the goal for a band like us is to be touring support. We’ve booked our own tours for years, and honestly, if there’s anything people don’t talk about when it comes to people of color in music, women in music, is that the more you have to play live because you’re forced to, it’s just harder. So what I’m hoping is that what’s happened in the past – a band of white dudes takes another band of white dudes out on the road – I mean, does it have to happen like that? Do I have to be the only [person of color] in the festival with, like, 85 bands? I mean, it’s like ‘Let’s start questioning this.’

SEM: As I’m sitting here listening to you, nothing you’re saying being all that surprising, really, sad as that is, and….what troubles me, and of course has troubled me forever but as such it only compounds year after year after year where these issues, even on the level you’re talking about – and we’re only talking about a band here, not some board of directors, and I guess there shouldn’t be any difference and there isn’t, really, but nonetheless, it’s kind of breathtakingly exasperating that we’re even having to have this discussion at this depth, that you’re in a place where you have to have an awareness of all this, completely – not separate from but on top of – the work that you all are doing as a band, the work you’re personally doing as an artist as, in short, it shouldn’t…fucking…matter. I find myself being caught up short sometimes because, well, it’s the same sort of thing we’ve been experiencing all this past year on so many different levels where you stop and think ‘People still think that?!’ Or feel that, or react in a way that changes their behavior and the decisions they make regarding a festival or whatever else. I mean, I knew I was going to be bringing this up but didn’t know I was going to go off on my own diatribe.

AG: Well, let me put it this way. We experience it at different levels but it’s always there. I think it would be foolish of us to act as if it’s not simply because it would make things harder for ourselves or we’d step into an uncomfortable situation and this goes for everything from, well, when we soundcheck, Nadia and I have a script that lets the sound guy know that we know what we’re doing. That we’re not there as decor, we’re actually full members of the band. [chuckles] If you’re curious, we also ask for a little reverb on the vocals to even us out because we sing at different volumes, just a little bit of reverb, it’s not like we’re constant twins, polite laugh goes here, and hopefully we’ve now connected with the sound guy enough that he won’t be a dick during the show. And it’s usually a dude…

SEM: Yeah, yeah, almost always

AG: But, y’know, everything from that to..it was really hard for us to get this record on a label. We were so happy to come to Felte because, y’know, while we were recording it we were asking ourselves which label should we even submit this to, and we’d go to some label’s roster page and it would be only dudes and we’d be like ‘Well, let’s see if they even open the email’ [laughter]. So, it’s not like something that we always have to keep in mind but I think what’s different about 2020 is that before, if we were in town we played one show a month, or we were on a tour that we booked ourselves and you’re just so much in the mix and just trying to get through things. A lot of this record was recorded after work, y’know? It was all in our lives in a cramped way that you can’t really see the forest for the trees and I think having the pause of life in general, in a way it brought clarity for a lot of people and it made us realize, once word was coming back on the record, ‘Y’know what? I think I’ve had a kind of imposter syndrome this whole time and actually I think we’re okay. We’re never going to think we’re the best band in the world but I think we deserve to be here.’

SEM: That’s good, I’m very glad to hear that. I mean, aside from the oddness, the inescapable oddness of it, this has been a very good year for Ganser. On a personal note, it feels gratifying that this band that I was immediately drawn to, that I invited to my festival [Out From The Shadows II in Portland OR, 2016] and they actually came out here…

AG: That was our very first tour, do you know that? You spurred our very first tour, you found us very early on, it’s always amazed me. 

SEM: Oh, OK, now I’m sitting here getting chills. But it wasn’t like it was a big leap of faith. 

AG: I was terrified the whole time, I will let you know. We had literally only known Brian and Charlie six months when we came out. We had just started so it was really cool to come out there, there are people that we still know that we met at that festival, did our first college radio show up in Evergreen, first show out of the country, in Canada, yeah that was great. It was a 32-hour ride to Portland. We kind of passed that threshold of ‘OK, I guess we can be in a car together.’ [laughs]

SEM: Yeah, I remember when you were walking into the club you kind of had this survivors’ gaze. 

AG: [laughing] I mean, it was straight, straight to the festival. We just rotated drivers. We never stopped. 

SEM: If I may say, ‘Ahh, youth.’ 

AG: Yeah, I don’t know how much more of that I have in me. 

SEM: Oh, you’ve probably got some more of that in your tank

AG: Seems we’ve all aged five years this year but we can just lie and say we’re ten years younger [laughs]

SEM: Sure, what the hell? Everything’s topsy-turvy this year anyway, we can just make up our own reality. 

AG: That where we’re at, I guess, we’re all just trying to make up our own reality.