Interview: Laura Pleasants of Kylesa

Since forming in 2001, Kylesa have done much to push the boundaries of heavy music, fusing the best of sludge metal, psychedelic rock, and other genres while developing their own distinct sound. In addition to a string of solid releases, the band has toured relentlessly, bringing their sonic attack to the masses in a big way, and garnering a large and loyal following.

In 2006 the band restructured, incorporating two drummers into their lineup, allowing a new range of experimentation, while at the same time continuing to refine their signature sound as heard on the albums Time Will Fuse its Worth (2006) and Static Tensions (2009). Verbicide was pleased to catch up with founding guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants about the evolution of Kylesa, their latest album Spiral Shadow, and what the future holds for the band.

Kylesa is almost 10 years old. When you first got together in 2001, what were your aspirations for the band? What are your aspirations for the band currently?
Well, I was still in school when we started — I guess it was like my senior year –and then I thought, Well, I’ll do this for a few years — I want to put out a couple of records, I want to tour, I want to get overseas. I never really thought about it in the broad scheme of things. Certainly, I wasn’t thinking 10 years ahead, but I was in my early 20s and I wasn’t thinking 10 years ahead anyways.

And now, five albums later, here we are.
I know, right? It’s definitely become a big part of my life, and, for the most part, I’m enjoying it. Just as a creative person, someone who needs to have the ability to create music and art, it’s essential for me to have this outlet. I’m happy with the path we’re taking. We’ve taken kind of a slow road, but I think it’s been a road of growth and maturity, and we’re certainly not out of ideas. It happens a lot of times with bands — they can’t write five or six records because they simply run out of ideas or steam…

Or they’re not willing to evolve?
Exactly, exactly. They’re starting to write the same record over again, and you just can’t really do that and make a good record. You have to progress and evolve, and that’s just a natural thing for an artist or a musician to do. There’s always growth involved, and you grow as a person, too. We’re older, we’ve had a lot of experiences, we’ve learned a lot, and we’ve also become more comfortable in our songwriting and where we’re going.

What was the process of writing the new album Spiral Shadow, and how did it differ from the process of writing Static Tensions or previous Kylesa albums?
I was living in North Carolina, and I moved back to Savannah in January. I was living with some friends, and Phillip and Carl and I got together to start writing. We started writing together, and we were just jamming — I was jamming off riffs that I’d come up with, and Phillip was doing the same, and I hadn’t thought that I wanted to write this kind of style or anything like that. I just went with what I was feeling and what was coming out, and I was playing a lot of guitar everyday.

So Carl and I would often jam together, and then Phillip and Carl would jam together. As we got a few tunes together, then we started collaborating, the three of us, a little more.  The stuff I was writing was really different, and then Phillip had a few songs that were in the more “Kylesa” vein of Static Tensions. He heard what I was writing and responded to that with some songs that kind of went with what I had going on, and vice versa. We work well together that way. With Static Tensions, it was probably two years — maybe a little over two years ago — that we wrote that record. It was in a similar way. Carl and I would jam, and then Phillip and Carl would jam, and then we would bring in the other drummer. But it was definitely in a different time; there were different things going on in our lives versus now, and that, you know, your immediate surroundings always affect your writing. What’s going on in our personal lives, what’s going on in our community… We had spent a lot of time on the road before we wrote Spiral Shadow, and we decided to take the time off to write the record.

On Kylesa’s 2006 album, Time Will Fuse Its Worth, you added a second drummer to the lineup. What was the reasoning behind adding a second drummer at the time, and how has your sound evolved since Time Will Fuse Its Worth to Spiral Shadow?
It was originally our plan to have a second drummer when we first started. I remember sitting in the back patio of Phillip’s house in 2000, maybe. We were talking; he had his previous band Damid, and I was good friends with Phillip and Brian of Damid. We always hung out, and Phillip and I jammed together a lot. I was just going to school — I didn’t have a serious band, but I really wanted one. So I was jamming with him and this other drummer in town, but he was telling me, “Look, Damid is going to break up, but I want to start another band — and I want to start one with you. We should get Tyler who we’ve been jamming with to join as a second drummer, and we can really push the boundaries of heavy music.”

That was a long time ago, and I was like, Yeah that sounds great, I’m down with that, sounds cool. But Tyler, at the time, just wasn’t really into the idea; he didn’t want to commit, and so it just didn’t really pan out. So we just went with Christian, who was drumming for Damid, and we just went with one drummer.

Then Christian quit — I think it was late 2003, early 2004 — and he was like, Yeah I can’t do this anymore. We were like, Look, we want to tour constantly. There’s no other reason for us to live in this town or do what we do, unless we’re going to tour, otherwise we just want to get regular jobs. So we got another drummer and he lasted for [about] a year; it just didn’t work out. So we started jamming with Carl who was just a local Savannahian. He was in a band called The Unpersons, and it was just a guy that we’ve known forever, so we started jamming with him so we could keep our chops up and keep writing — but he wasn’t in the band or anything. While we were jamming with him, we were trying out drummers. We put the word out, and we were trying out [people who were] basically complete strangers. We weren’t thrilled about that; we’d rather have someone we know, but drummers are hard to find, so we had to reach out. We wanted Carl in the band but he was like, School, I’m busy, I can’t do it.

So we got Jeff, this guy from Detroit — he was the best guy that tried out and seemed fairly excited. We got him down to Savannah. We had two kits set up in our practice space, and we called Carl to come over there to show him the songs. So we had them both there and we had them both play. It sounded really cool, and we were like, Oh man it would be cool to have both of you, and it was around that time that Carl decided that he could and wanted to play in the band fulltime.

So it was kind of planned, and also it just worked out too that he was available. Jeff was with us for just that one record, and Carl’s been with us since then. The recording process of that record was difficult with the drums. It’s hard to tell, but there are two drummers on that record, mainly because when we recorded, Jeff’s grandmother died and he had to go home and do all this funeral stuff, but we had to record. We couldn’t back out of our studio time, so we went ahead and did it, and when Jeff got back, he had to overdub all of his drum parts over what Carl had already laid down. Carl didn’t play a click track or anything so it was really hard for him to do, and super time-consuming. We had never recorded two drummers before and neither had the engineer, so it was definitely a huge learning curve with that record.

How does that take you to the following album Static Tensions and to the present with the new album Spiral Shadows?
With the following album, more research was done, more talking and shooting ideas as to how it could be done, and they came to the conclusion that the best idea was to track them at the same time, live, and just get a good take from them. We tried to record all together, but it was just so loud in the room that the drummers couldn’t hear each other over the guitars and the bass. So we just had those two; we would run through a song, get the tempo even, get the vibe there, and then they would go over the song together, side by side, with a little bit of isolation, and it worked much better that way. They could feel it. I don’t exactly know how they went about recording it with mics and stuff. They were in the same room with a little isolation wall between them and they could see and hear each other; that made a huge difference, and we did the same thing this time.

You’ve done awesome limited edition vinyl releases for several of your previous albums. What’s planned for the limited edition of Spiral Shadows?
Relapse Records is doing this vinyl release, so they’re gonna do X amount — we don’t know how many they’re gonna do, but we’re gonna do a double-vinyl gatefold with more artwork.

Nothing quite as elaborate as the wooden box of Static Tensions?
I don’t think so, unless it’s licensed to another label, which I doubt will happen. [Regarding] our previous releases, because we were working with these other labels, we were able to do some crazy stuff. And Dave from 20 Buck Spin was game [for] something crazy. I was telling him before that we had done a hundred records with plexiglass covers, a hundred records with glass covers, [and] that we pretty much did ourselves. I was talking to him, and telling him that the one material we hadn’t really used was wood.

I don’t think there’s gonna be anything that extravagant for this release, but there will be a very nice double vinyl gatefold with limited colors.

In an interview last year discussing the special edition of Static Tensions, you said, “There is something magic about vinyl.” What is the magic of vinyl, and what are some choice albums from your collection that have influenced you musically and lyrically?
Vinyl is a magic material. It’s been around forever, it’s still around today, and it’s outlasted all these other formats. There’s just something about touching it, listening to it, hearing the pops of an old record, and looking at the artwork. Some of my favorite records would have to be some of the old Pink Floyd records, some metal…the Pink Floyd I found at a junk store for like 25 cents, many years ago. It was not in good condition by any means, but I still jam that record; it’s got all kinds of pops on it, but just the vibe of vinyl and where that record has been is really cool. It reaches something that digital media can’t.

I always think that vinyl has more sound than a digital format. Digital formats sound dead.
It does. It’s much more open and warm. Listening to music on vinyl is just a different experience from listening to it on either CD or certainly on your laptop or iPod. I really think the music comes alive; it really comes alive on vinyl. And we always keep that in consideration. Even though the masses aren’t listening to music on vinyl anymore, certainly some people are, and we always take that into consideration.

Does that affect your writing process?
No, but it does affect the order of the songs. We always think in terms of side A and side B. When we’re thinking about laying out the record, or just thinking about the record in general, we’re thinking, Alright, what are some awesome records that just kill it on both sides? Because there are a lot of records that are great on side A,  but you flip it over and side B is not as good — or vice-versa.

So what makes the sound of a side A versus the sound of a side B? Is it just a matter of aesthetics when you are putting it together and laying out song order? Is there a specific “this is a side A song” vs. “this is a side B song?”
Sometimes. Like, if there’s a real rocker, then I’d say that’s definitely a side A song. If there’s more of a slow, “jammy” number, you don’t really want to put that first — you want to get into that later. But it depends on the songs. There’s certainly not only one formula for how to lay out a good record.

How have your influences changed over time? You’ve talked about the Pink Floyd record that is still in your collection today. Have there been things that have come and gone from what you’ve been listening to? And how has that affected you as a musician?
Yeah, I do certainly go through phases, and things come and go, but as far as completely leaving, I don’t think that ever happens. Stuff that has really inspired me in the past, but I may not be currently listening to…that doesn’t mean it’s left me. It’s right there. It’s just adding to this knowledge of music that has affected me, and you build upon that. When I say that I go through phases, I go through little obsessions with bands. I’m obsessed with one band for awhile, or maybe a few records, that I listen to constantly, and then put them down and move on to something else — but that record is always with me. It’s a lot of different stuff from punk, metal, crust punk, alternative rock, psychedelic rock, ’70s rock, and then stuff like folk and electronic music; it runs the gamut.

How do your musical influences manifest themselves in the songs that you write? Is [it that] you’re rocking out to certain things when you’re writing and it’s like osmosis, or is it ever something more deliberate, like rocking out to something and wanting to create your own?
It’s a little bit of both, definitely. If I’m listening to something while I’m writing that’s really inspirational to me or that I’m really digging on, it’s going to sometimes manifest itself in the writing. Certainly not like a rip off or an emulation, but if it’s quite an influence, it will shine through. But I’ve also gone yeah, I really like this, and I want to see if I can [take] this [concept from] this band, maybe learn from that and do something on my own that might be [similar].

Do you also write lyrics as well?
Yeah, Phillip and I write the lyrics.

What sort of themes are addressed in your lyrics?
For this record, we have the general theme of distance. Phillip and I were talking early on, and we were talking about how we’d been a band for a long time. I’d moved around a bit…he [said], “I really think the theme of distance will work for this record,” and I completely agreed. There was a lot of physical distance going on, the physical distance of our band from day one to now, and the emotional distance of us being either with loved ones or each other, and it was an easy topic for me to write on — and I think it was for him too. It made sense. There was a lot to reflect upon, as far as our past work, and we also wanted to look ahead to see what it offered us in the future.

As far as writing [is concerned], we might have a general theme, but then it’s just a stream of consciousness. I just put a pen to paper, write, pick up the pen later and go back through the words. Then, depending on the vibe of the song, I’ll go from there.

You have developed this reputation for touring relentlessly. How does the dynamic of being a band that tours as hard as you do create a dynamic both for playing live versus in the studio, and how does that affect your writing process?
It’s very different. We rarely write on tour just because there’s a lack of time, and sometimes energy. Playing live, you hone in on that chemistry that you have as a band and your songs become really tight. We road-tested a few of these new songs before we recorded them, but we mainly write the songs and then go play them live. Touring all the time, it is a strange dynamic. It’s not normal by any means as far as living, but we do enjoy touring. There is just a feeling about playing live with loud guitars and sweat, and being in a club, playing to your fans, and it’s just a great feeling. It’s something that we really enjoy doing.

So What is the future of Kylesa, and what do fans have to look forward to?
Hmm…if I had my magic orb, what would it say? [laughter] We’re going to be touring a whole lot this year, and we’re going to go to Australia at the beginning of next year. We’re doing the Soundwave Festival in Australia.

Is this the first time you’ve been to Australia?
Yeah, so we’re real excited. Then we’ll come back to the US and do some kind of headlining tour in the spring. We haven’t really been doing much in the US in the past year; we’ve been mainly focusing on Europe. And then maybe we’ll head back to Europe next summer.

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Tired Climb” by Kylesa