Lower BurningLights

You’ll come back to their music, again and again

interview: caroline nitz photography: ben blood illustration: faye west

Lower Lights Burning is a Washington-based trio consisting of brothers Graydon and Michael Holden and Amanda Winterhalter. This indie folk-rock ensemble released the album Coming Back in October 2011. Armed with a surprising variety of instruments, including guitar, ukulele, mandolin, drums, banjo, organ and, my personal favorite, the glockenspiel, their music inspires contemplation and reflection. Thoughtful lyrics and crafted harmonies bring to mind the melodies of n.Lannon or Iron & Wine, and it only takes a few measures to understand that these three musicians sincerely love what they do.

How did the group come together?

Michael Holden: We formed Lower Lights Burning around 2002, after Graydon and I had led music at our church for a few years. I had the basic ability to keep time and had always been one of those kids that beats on the back of the pew during music at church.

Graydon Holden: For the first few years, we just got together to jam and write and horse around. We didn’t take it very seriously until about 2006 when [Michael and I] released a self-titled album and started working at booking shows.

Amanda Winterhalter: I joined the band in March 2010. I grew up learning harmonies in church and taking piano lessons from the church organist. I started teaching myself guitar as a young teenager and led church bands until after college, when I started writing and performing my own music, and then I joined Lower Lights Burning.

I love the name Lower Lights Burning. Where did it come from?

G: The name came from a hymn. My grandfather was a Methodist minister and it was one of his favorite hymns.

You describe your music as indie folk-rock (and, amusingly, “indie frock” or “fraggle rock”). What artists influence your music?

M: Yanni. ‘Nuff said. A: Bands like Coldplay, The Swell Season, Sufjan Stevens, and Mumford & Sons have a lyrical quality that influences our music. Instrumentally, we take a lot of cues from Sigur Rós, Dave Matthews Band, Arcade Fire, and British folk.

G: Michael’s a punk. Amanda’s got a great list here. One of the first bands I got into was U2. That was mostly due to my friend and neighbor Cameron Nicklaus who we, much later, had the privilege of working with on Coming Back. [Nicklaus recorded, engineered and co-produced Coming Back.]

Something that has influenced me outside of popular music is a record I had when I was a boy: Peter and the Wolf. I haven’t heard it in years now, but my mother would talk me though the record and point things out. Things, as a boy, I wasn’t likely to notice or appreciate. Things like the composer’s use of different instruments for the voices of different types of characters; the bird as the flute, the duck, I think, was an oboe. Voices would give hints at the tendency or likeness of the character. Also, the use of the different movements in the piece to emote a certain response – dark, minor movements for scary or suspenseful points. Things like that. Maybe it was just the fact that my mother shared it with me or the fact that she was sharing some- thing that she obviously cared about and believed in and wanted to pass on. Whatever it was, it stuck with me.

What was the recording process like for Coming Back?

G: We started the recording process in the summer of 2010 with three long days in a big, beautiful studio outside of Seattle, Washington, and we released the finished album on October 15th, 2011. Doing things on a budget means you don’t always get to be first in the queue.

This was the first time we worked with a producer of any sorts and that was a really big deal for us. The benefits and challenges for me were both pretty big. You hear stories, like how the Edge came unglued when U2 was working with Brian Eno. There were days when I could feel the same kind of things creeping up in me and it was tough to remind myself that no one I play music with or work with is out to mess up anything I’ve poured myself into. As artists I think it’s hugely important to have outside input and influence. To get the most out of that sometimes it means letting people tweak and test things that you might feel are too personal or important. You have to decide whether the possible growth and benefit is worth the initial emotional strain.

I tend to get locked into things and without Michael and Amanda... well, the things I would write without their influence would not be as beautiful. I found the same advantage in listening to Cam[eron Nicklaus] on his ideas of melody shift or little arrangement changes – little things that make a big difference.

M: The recording process was a lot of fun. At that time I actually had just started going back to school. I remember calling Amanda’s roommate for help on mathematics during [recording] sessions. That time, and Cameron Nicklaus, challenged me to focus more than ever on making great music. The most rewarding thing for me is hearing our talents together every time

I listen to the CD. On the title track Coming Back there’s a low rumble that Cameron wanted me to experiment with. The first take, I was just feeling out that section of the song. We tried a few more times but it turned out the first take fit perfectly. When I hear that part of the song, I remember that it was me being in the song, and hearing and feeling what was going on that created that moment. That has helped me to trust myself and my creative gifts.

A: The whole process took over a year, from starting out in a professional recording studio, to scattered weekends recording at our producer’s house, to finally having the shrink-wrapped album in our hands. Even though it was a long, drawn-out process, it was ideal because of the people we worked with. Our producer was an amazing advocate, and the chemistry we have as a band, being like family, made it such a fun and positive experience. Releasing the album was so rewarding because we had this tangible object to commemorate that year of time, effort, energy, and creativity that we invested in each other and in a body of art. We’re all really proud of it.

This question is for Graydon, the Lower Lights Burning songwriter. How do you go about songwriting? Where does your inspiration come from?

G: All of the songs on the album were mostly written on the guitar (or in the case of Coming Back, the mandolin) and built by Lower Lights Burning into an arranged piece. A songwriting method is not something I have pinned down. That’s part of what scares me about writing music as a job. I get pretty out of sorts if I put my mind to something and try to get it done and find I’m unhappy with the result. Something so emotionally derived as the songs I want to be writing and sharing – those are tough to sit down and “work out”.

For the most part though, I tend to find a thought or phrase or a picture in my mind that is mostly the heart of what I want to write, and I start filling it out from there. Something that helps me a lot is if I can find some of the song structure –a chord progression that is fitting and in the right time signature, and record a bit of that. I’ll listen to that and let my mind wander around in that music as I piece together what it is I’m trying to say.

Outside of the moments of songwriting, I find that surrounding myself with the beauty and talent of other writers helps very much. It reminds me how to speak. The cadence and the rhythm. Filling your heart with beauty will never leave you with a bad result, whatever it is you want to do.

I was delighted to discover that you offer Coming Back for purchase on vinyl. What made you decide to release in this format, in addition to the more traditional digital download and CD formats?

G: If vinyl wasn’t starting to sell again we wouldn’t have invested the time and money in that media. That said, I still remember having records as a kid. I would sit by the player, listening and look over the artwork in the jacket. Vinyl, being rather bulky and fragile, demands more of you as a listener. It tends to make listening to music an experience, rather than a soundtrack to other experiences.

I completely agree. And one step further in the music listening experience is playing for a live audience – are you able to play live shows?

M: [We play] as often as we can. We’d like to be playing weekly shows. With the holidays and winter we played a little less. I’m getting more comfortable with audiences. My problem comes when I get too comfortable...my wife will tell you I’m a weirdy.

G: We used to play out quite a bit more than we do. I think, as a band, if you want to put on an enjoyable show you need to be comfortable in that environment. That takes quite a bit for me. I get pretty nervous before shows. I tend to think that it will only get better by playing more frequently. At the same time, we want our shows to be something that you can’t just expect to wander into every weekend in Seattle. So from that standpoint, either you travel a lot or you don’t play a lot of shows. I would love to be playing shows at least twice a week somewhere but for now we’re playing maybe a show a month.

I love playing music in front of an audience. Getting to share something so personal but something that, hopefully, everyone else can relate to. Getting to be a voice that says what most of us think and hope everyone else feels as well. People are beautiful – sometimes a big mess, but still beautiful, and I love exploring what we are through writing music and the people we meet in playing music.

A: I love sharing music with a live audience. I love the risk it involves, and the great opportunity to connect with people through songs. You never know what a song will mean to someone.

What do you anticipate for the band’s future? Are you working on anything new right now?

G: We’re mostly all in some sort of transition in our personal lives, but I would love to continue working with these two lovely and talented people. At the moment we’re looking at recording some material that we hadn’t quite finished writing when we recorded [Coming Back]. We hope to release those tracks later this year. We are working on some new material, but we really want to focus on supporting Coming Back in the next year. It’s the first thing we’ve done at that level and it’s a very good feeling to have that material out there.

Coming Back is available for purchase on lowerlightsburning.bandcamp.com, and you can also listen to the entire album online. Favorite tracks include the hauntingly beautiful “Every Ship Goes Down” and the joyful title track “Coming Back,” but this album is best enjoyed in its entirety, from start to finish. Take Graydon’s advice and devote some time to this music listening experience. It’s worth it.