In Conversation: Sauna
In Conversation: Sauna
Sophie Noel
Last week, I called up Michael Le Riche (Fake Palms, Sauna) to chat about Dose Yourself, Sauna’s first full-length record, set to be released on May 27th (hey! that’s today!). Read on for poetic waxings about the particularly punk rock beauty of electricity, collaborative creative processes, and going with your gut.
<><><><><>
Sophie Noel: I'd like to start out with the form of the record, because this is your first full length with Sauna but you have two EPs out already. I was wondering how the process differed in production for you between the EP and LP format.
Michael Le Riche: For the EP, the first one, we were kind of just finding our footing and figuring out what we wanted to do. By the time we got around to approaching the record, it was more like we're gonna take some time, think about it, and figure out what we want to say as a whole. I always think of full length records as more of a cohesive statement versus an EP, which can be kind of just a collection of songs. The LP is a bit more of a mission statement.
SN: A mission statement for the band, or just for this album?
MLR: I would say this album. I mean, everything changes. You think you know what you're doing today, and then tomorrow, you want to do the exact opposite. And you look back at yesterday and go, I can't believe I did that.
SN: Yeah, I think I read a piece you did, and forgive me but I forget who you were interviewing, but you mentioned that you had no qualms about just tossing things out the window when they weren't working for you.
MLR: Yeah, I think that was the Talkhouse piece we did with Brian, our producer for that first EP. I've always just kind of had that approach, you know; you do something and you get so immersed with it, you kind of lose your bearings in it. And I think that's kind of the best way to make stuff: to get so far into it that you're not really sure where you are anymore.
SN: Loss of perspective, maybe.
MLR: Yeah. And then once you kind of have some time away from that, you can look back on it and go like, that was a really interesting thing I did, or, you know, I never want to do that thing again. I just think it's really important not to be precious about anything that you're doing. And I think that leads to more honest work.
SN: You said “we” a few times in reference to Sauna and I'm wondering if you present the band with fully formed and arranged tracks to learn, or if it’s more of a collaborative process?
MLR: With the three of us for this record, it was primarily me writing at home and experimenting with a lot of different kinds of recording and writing techniques I hadn't really approached before. And then hitting them with like 40 songs, and there were arrangements with really basic ideas but I was trying to leave them rough around the edges. And a lot of times things came out, you know, completely opposite of how they started. Like, for example, we just released a single called “Dose Yourself”. It's the title track from the record. And it's this moody, kind of really heavy tune, but the demo of it was a really upbeat, kind of ABBA-esque pop song.
SN: I was actually curious about this. You noted in the press release that the song was a “total failure”, I believe. Can you speak to that a little bit?
MLR: Yeah, when I set out to write that song, I was trying to write a pop song, and I wanted it to be really bright and upbeat. And, of course, it turned out to be the exact opposite. It's kind of the least traditionally structured song on the record. I think it's very linear, and it really doesn't have a bridge. There's a broken saxophone solo in it. It's a departure from everything else on the record, which was really exciting to us.
I think a lot of decisions were made subconsciously, especially within the three of us. It's a lot of leading with our gut. I think a lot of people wait for things to happen. We spend so much time waiting on others to get things done, in any kind of endeavour. At a certain point I realised I just needed to jump in the pool, you know, with all my clothes on and all that stuff.
You don't need anything special to do whatever it is you want to do whatever you have on hand, you can figure it out, you can get things done.
SN: Are you more of a preparer as opposed to an improviser?
MLR: Yeah, for a long time I would prepare things to death. I would run around in circles in my brain trying to figure things out, and then nothing would actually get done. I would kind of squeeze the life out of ideas and kind of creative endeavours doing that. And so at a certain point, I was just like, embrace the mess. This has gotta be fun. And whatever it is you have, you don't need anything else. You don't need to look into the future, you can just look into the present and experience what you’re doing.
SN: Yeah, that's the key, isn't it?
MLR: I think…I'm not entirely sure.
SN: I think you've landed on something. It’s a meaningful record for you.
MLR: Yeah, it's interesting. Now, I listened to the record, and it serves up some very specific, strange emotions, because it is such a very specific time in my life, that I am not that person anymore. And it wasn't that person beforehand. And it was just this kind of very specific window.
SN: Well, thank goodness, you made something during that time. You might have forgotten that you were that person at all.
MLR: Yeah, exactly. I would have just become a banker and started accounting or something.
SN: I read that when you left the Darcy's, you were kind of looking to take a sidestep from a -as described from the article I read- “pathologically ambitious” band, which I thought was a really great turn of phrase. And you were looking for something less precise, which you made in Fake Palms. To my ear, Sauna offers something a little bit precise again, and pretty locked in just by nature of the disco and the pop and the kind of groove-based tight sound. So I'm wondering if the pendulum is swinging back a little bit here or if that's on your mind at all?
MLR: Yeah, (laughs) it's funny that you said that about the Darcy’s… it's really funny. You know, when I left that band, I was kind of helping someone else achieve their sonic goals, right? And so with Fake Palms, I was like, “You know what? I can finally do what I want to do”.
I like the sound of home recordings and mess. I like young bands, unsure of themselves, more so than the kind of bands in their 15th year and on their fifth record, and they're going to a studio and making everything sound perfect. So that was kind of the vibe and it just kind of happened naturally.
So with Fake Palms, it was like, you know what, we made the messy guitar record. What's the exact opposite of a thing I can do? I am interested in synthesizers, and at the time, I was learning how to build them and getting like, really into the nitty gritty. The opposite to Fake Palms was having no guitars, and it was just a minimal synth, bass drum record. And so that was kind of what our first EP was. And then from there, moving into our full length record, it was, let's see what happens when we try and make a clean pop record.
I mean, ideally, I wanted to make a record that someone could go running to. So that was kind of where my mind was, but I don't think it's that record. I don't think it's the super uplifting, happy record. It's moody and dark. So I'm sure the next record I make will be the opposite of this record. You get so immersed in a project when you're doing it that it's just natural for the next thing to take a completely different approach.
SN: Yeah, I think if you have an exploratory and curious mindset, that's absolutely right. And I would agree the record is bonafide pop. But there is a darkness and a moodiness and a vulnerability to it that is really intriguing.
MLR: Yeah, thank you. I was trying to be vulnerable, as much as I can be, I think I come across as a bit guarded at times.
SN: Can you speak to your connection to the synthesizer?
MLR: You know, I love big rock records, but in my early days I was always chasing new sounds. I'd end up buying all these guitar pedals and making some interesting textures with a guitar. I'd be listening to Kid A by Radiohead. And I'd be like, how are they doing this? I was working in a used music store in Toronto, and just because of the job got interested in synths and my fascination started to take hold. I started collecting things and all day every day I was playing around with them and learning about them. And it's like, all of a sudden this entire world opened up to me because I learned it wasn't guitars [that made the sounds I was looking for], it was synthesizers.
To me, it's just so fascinating that, like, if you modify electricity in certain ways, you can get these incredibly expressive sounds that can hit you on an emotional and physical level. It just blew my mind and continues to blow my mind. So from there I went to school, I did this course at George Brown on electronics, and started building stuff. There's a huge DIY community on the web, where people will clone these obsolete old synthesizers that don't exist anymore. I ended up building a clone of a Buchla Music Easel, which was a really fascinating experimental synth. I mean, I still love playing guitar, of course, it's just a completely different thing.
The amount of expression… you can make the craziest, disco ABBA string sound, or you can have this like, overwhelming low frequency, where the filter slowly opens up and then all of a sudden you feel it right in your gut. What you can do with it, to me, is just fascinating. You don't need to be an expert on music theory, or know anything about sound at all. And you can pick up a synthesizer and make awesome stuff. That is like punk rock to me. It's super DIY and anyone can do it.
SN: Yeah, definitely. Well said. Electricity is such an amazing medium. The mix of intangible and tangible that something like electricity presents is just so cool. It's in our brains, and it's in our walls, and it's just a crazy thing.
MLR: Yeah, it's crazy. You can make electricity from water. You can make electricity from a potato.
SN: What do you want people to do when they are listening to Dose Yourself, when it's released?
MLR: That's an interesting question. I guess I stated that my intention with it initially was to make this record for people to run to that was kind of continuously upbeat. But honestly, I think there's a lot of really interesting textures on it. And there's some weightiness to it.
I would love it if people experienced it in the way that I experienced some really formative records when I was young, which was literally, you know, oh, man, I'm so old. I was just thinking about putting in my Discman and putting on headphones. Sitting in bed with a record is super nice, you know, on a rainy evening, and just having it super loud and immersing yourself in it and just kind of sitting there and enjoying it. That would be great. That would be ideal for me. I wouldn't want any more than that.
SN: Awesome. Well, thanks again, Michael. Congratulations on the album and I look forward to the release.
MLR: Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
<><><><><>
Sauna’s debut album, Dose Yourself, is available everywhere tomorrow but we love recommending purchasing via Bandcamp. Sauna has an upcoming live show in Toronto at the Monarch Tavern on May 28th and will be making some festival appearances this summer, first in St. John’s for Lawnya Vawnya (June 8th -11th), then at the famed Hillside Festival (July 23- 25th).
