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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Someone Stills Loves You Boris Yeltsin
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 7 October 2010
Formed in 2002, American indie types Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin released their debut album, ‘Broom’, through Generic Equivalent in 2005, re-releasing it in a remastered form a year later when they signed to Polyvinyl Records. Their third album, ‘Let It Sway’, which was produced by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla and Beau Sorenson, was released through the same label in August this year.
Ahead of two UK gigs, at The Forum in Tunbridge Wells on Sunday and London’s Hoxton Bar & Kitchen on Monday, we caught up with frontman Phil Dickey to find out more.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
We were teenagers and we didn’t really have anything else to do. It just seemed like a good idea to form a band. Then we realised being in a band is the best thing in the world. Or maybe the second best thing.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
All the songs are autobiographical. The whole album is about wanting to be a better person. It’s also about wanting to make our city and community better. The last few years have been really weird and almost everything changed. We could have crashed and burned, but we tried to stick together and get along
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
There are three songwriters in our band, so every song comes together differently. We generally spend hundreds of hours alone with a guitar or piano trying to write songs. Then we all get together and work on the songs at practice, with everyone adding parts and all that. Then we figure out how we’re going to record it, which is hard because we all have other jobs and things going on in our non-band lives. Sometimes we record it ourselves in a house. We recorded our first album at Will’s parents’ house and the second one at his aunt’s house. But this time we found Chris Walla and Beau Sorenson and they produced ‘Let It Sway’.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
A lot of classic rock. We all like The Beatles, Tom Petty, Beach Boys, Nirvana, and good bands like that. My favorite current bands are New Monsters Collective, Wheat, The Mommyheads, and Phoenix. Sometimes reading is more inspiring than listening to music. I was reading Jeffrey Eugenides and Lewis Carroll when we were writing this album.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
“Your life is about to change”. Just kidding. I would just say, “I really hope you like this. If you don’t, please don’t tell me because it will probably hurt my feelings”.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We’d love to tour all over the world for ‘Let It Sway’ and play a show for everyone who likes the album. For the future I’d like to make another 50 albums. We’re never going to break up. We’re going to keep making records until we die.
MORE>> www.sslyby.com
