Living with Lions

It had been seven years since Living With Lions released a new record before we were able to hear their autumn release, Island. Many people were anticipating new music from them also with understanding that it would never come as soon as they would want with all of the members having their hearts in other bands a well. But with this particular record there seemed to be a series of circumstances that lead to even further push-back. Some songs met their conception four or five years ago before being completely reconstructed into something for what would become the final state of Island. We were lucky enough to meet up with vocalist, Chase Brennerman and talk a little bit about the process as well as different elements that incorporated themselves into the record and its visuals.

“When we started writing those songs it was to be more pro-active, to start working on a record at some point,” Chase jumped in immediately, “Flash forward three or four years when we are needing to be putting out a record, all of a sudden it’s writing songs with a little bit more of a purpose.” Different tracks such as “Second Arrows” had been kicking around for the band. It was a time where things were a lot looser before the members of Living With Lions really felt the need to start pushing for another full-length. When asked how things changed from when some of the songs had first been written Chase stated that, “As far as lyrical thing go, a lot of shit will transpire in that period of time. When it all came down to us putting the record together last year we were all together hearing it. That always kind of changes the way we are writing these songs.”

Typically, the band would come together and build from an idea that someone would have but now with everything living in different parts of Western Canada it becomes a little more difficult to do. Guitarist, Landon Matz, lives in Calgary and has to find two weeks at a time to fly out to Vancouver so that they can get everything together. Now it just makes more sense to evolve everything like a stream-line approach. “Before we’d have good and bad days where, In the good days, we’d come to the jam space with an idea and we’d hang out a song. It’d work out really well. Or there’d be bad days where we’d have an idea for a song and bang out heads off of the wall and be really mad at each other. A lot of the time it’s the bad days,” He laughs lightly.

There’s actually a lot that differed the Island process from everything else, for one, Chase had never written vocals for a full-length record before. “I have written vocals for a lot of Living With Lions songs in the past but it’d only be fore 2 or whatever songs the record was and Matt would do the rest.” Even listening to the record you can hear a bit more of an element of seriousness in their writing. In the past, there was a lot of focuses on relationships with people but even Chase admits that it may not be in the same kind of impactful way the experiences that lead to this record were. “I feel the best stuff I write is when I am writing about stuff that makes me angry, even if it’s kind of mean. Over the course of writing this record, we had a friend that went to rehab and that was a sobering experience. You realize it’s kind of a possibility but then when you realize it’s happening to someone close to you [it’s then] you realize how serious it could become.” The title track, showed exactly this story of their experiences with this friend. But it was not just this devastation that came about, “My uncle passed away too at one point. My aunt and uncle were my closest family that I have other than my parents and sister ... I know people who have to deal with much worse stuff than that but it was the first time I had to deal with something like that. It was totally unexpected and a strange experience to go through, and sad obviously.” With all the events that transpired it just came naturally that the record would touch up on a lot more serious topics and themes than it previously had.

“It took us a really long time to do, which is unfortunate,” Chase continues, “It’s the first time we’ve done a record completely on our own.” Ever since the beginning of Living With Lions they had been lucky enough to work on a label and had other people involved in what ever content they would create. As far as the timeline goes, their budget was completely on their own without anyone else flipping the bill and asking for them to get it done in a specific time line. This time, it was completely up to the core members of the band, “I don’t know if we should be proud of it, but we had to put all the money up for it and produce it, work on the sons on our own, seeing the whole process through. With five guys at this time working full-time, having other serious obligations, it was fucking hard to do, to be honest. Once the record was done, packaged and pressed, it was a pretty good feeling. I wish it had been done sooner, and I think about that, but I guess it wouldn’t have turned out the same either. You just kind of have to accept it.”

When it comes to art work, Living With Lions always puts a lot of thought into what they want to come out of it. For Island specifically they wanted a dye-cut record, and to do something with collage. Their friend, Soft Circuit in Vancouver ended up coming through with the final design but much like the record itself, there was a bit of a journey before they got to the final product that they are more than thrilled with. “We ended up constantly hiring an artist and them quitting because it was too ambitious of a project. And then Soft Circuit ran with it.” The different rooms in the building are meant to mirror different ideas of songs off of the record and Soft Circuit put a lot of work to ensure that it would work on this level, as well as tricking the mind into not realizing what you are seeing at first. Ultimately, it came off interesting, warm, and cohesive, exactly the way that the band had wanted it to be.

Album artwork is not the only thin that Living With Lions has spent a lot of time on when it comes to visuals. With videos such as “Tidal Wave,” you can see the literal drawn work that they put into everything. Originally, they had filmed this music video not completely satisfied with how it came out. They knew that they wanted to salvage the video and that was when their videographer friend, Cody Fennel, came up with the idea of painting on the frames. So that was what they ended up doing. The video was broken down into 10 frames per-second, the images being printed out and hand drawn and painted on. While it was Chase that did a fair majority of the frames they had other artist friends come and help them out as well as the band and their old vocalist, Stu Ross, add it it all as well. With everything being at Chase’s house he couldn’t escape the task but any time anyone was over and just sort of hanging out, it became a thing for them to do and work on. “It was 22,000 pieces of paper. I think it was a more rewarding process and obviously is something I’m proud of ... But I’d never do that again.”

Now with the record done, out and shared with the world, the group intends to do some more touring. There’s no real solidified plans but already they are discussing writing more songs and play as many shows that they possibly can, possibly even venture to Europe. “We aren’t trying to be a big successful band, but at the same time why would we not do it if we like doing it? It’s rare to have 4 or 5 friends that you like to play music with.”