Blasting off with Bloomsday
By Sean Maldjian, Contributor
Meet Bloomsday
Hi friends. Long time no talk…or as Sean fessed up to Iris of Bloomsday, “first time caller, long time fan.”
Hope y’all have been doing well and hanging on in these very weird, endemic-vibe times. Like the prodigal son, we have returned. This has been a long time coming, but we are back and ready to chat all things music and nonsense.
Recently, we had the pleasure of getting Iris on the horn and chatting about their recent release, “Place To Land” — which, in all honesty, is a real force and deserves to be played ad nauseam through your aux cable.
I was really stoked when I saw your whole album dropped. Last time we talked it was still in the works right?
You interviewed me while I was writing it I think. Yeah, I think it was still recording it.
So what was the process of putting it together?
I kind of didn't know what the undertaking was to make a record — neither me or Alex had really done that before. And we recorded one song in 2019. But then once the pandemic hit, we were like, “Well, shit, I don't know. Do we record another single? Or should we just go ahead and record everything because we've got all this time…”
We decided to just dive into recorded music. We kind of took our sweet time. Probably in total it took six months because we would go every week to his parents house in Westchester, where he built out a whole studio. We were really lucky that we had that space to go to.
We were going to do a few more songs but decided seven will be good. It feels short but sweet. It's hard to put an album together that has been written over the course of so many years, because it's hard to find the through line.
But when I had hindsight, I think the through line ended up being [when] I started identifying with being non-binary. Like, the band really started when I started using new pronouns. The masters came to me the week that I went into my top surgery [which I think is] pretty coincidental and interesting. And [so I think] it must relate to the songs, because the songs are all really about transformation, and death, and rebirth, and going through different phases of life.
Would you say Place to Land is in a way a time capsule? Anything you guys are working on after that is gonna be a new chapter.
The time capsule thing is so real. And we're all gonna get hindsight as time goes on about what happened in 2020, 2021. This project felt like something I was pretty hesitant [about]. It's scary to put your stuff out… like putting it on paper, and you know, really deciding the sound. It's something I've never done and I was definitely scared to do. So I'm glad that I had the time and space to just do it. And he and I were able to do it alone.
But also, that'll be contrasted with the next record, which we haven't quite started working on yet. I know we're gonna have a lot more people involved because Alex and I really love to work with collaborators and in the room. And we couldn't do that with this record.
Who you kind of have your eyes on in terms of working with?
We work with my dear friend from college, Jordan, and his best friend from growing up, Dan. And they're in this band called Toledo. They're so great and talented. And that's who we're sharing [our new] studio space with. I just love having them, just around when I'm creating — they're very creative people.
And then, I don't know, I feel like the music community is really coming back together. So I've made a lot of friends. And [friends] that were on the internet. And now I've met them — not on the internet —And that's been great. So we'll see. I just have the feeling that it'll be a nice, collaborative process of inviting people in the room and not doing it in total solitude like we did on Place To Land…And then I'll see the difference, you know, because Place To Land is very internal. And maybe the next time we'll have more of an external experience.
Did you get to tour with any of the new songs yet?
We're gonna do it and I am pumped, honestly. I'm just like, WOW,, we've never done that. We've been a band for a while, but we've never toured. So I'm really freaking stoked to go. We're gonna do the East Coast, like from Vermont, down to Asheville. I'm excited about a lot of the shows that we're doing. And before that, we're going to open for Courtney Barnett actually…I could have never imagined that.
It's been amazing checking the calendar and seeing a lot of local artists are still touring or getting back into touring again.
Yeah, I'm glad that it's coming back together. Because it's been a long time that we've been dealing with this pandemic. And every show you’ve got to deal with COVID. It's just a thing that you deal with. I've only played a few shows in the last year, but almost every one was impacted by COVID. Now, I just roll with the punches. Like, it's not even surprising anymore.
I’ve noticed People have to be more connected and more communicative than they were before.
Yeah, totally. And, it's needing to be just more aware of what's going on.
What's your outlook on the music scene moving forward?
I think that musicians will continue to play live. I hope that that's a known thing, and I feel like it is. Before the pandemic, it felt like people [would] just push through and be like, oh, I'm so sick tonight but I'm still gonna play for you guys. [But now] I'm glad that we are collectively not supporting pushing through, to protect the people that you're around and also to take care of yourself in that moment.
And then inevitably, these shows are handled with more care… So I guess my answer is, I think it's shaped by how we handle these nights. And, instead of “blood and tears and rock and roll” I think it's [more about] the collective consciousness, seeing how everyone's doing, and making sure everyone is aware of other people in the space and the musicians on stage.
