Spirits of Leo

By Sean Maldjian, Contributor

Photo by, Annika White

Meet Spirits of Leo

A self-portrait by, Spirits of Leo

Would you rather…

Take every first date to Chuckie E. Cheese or have your wedding and funeral at Dave and Busters?

Chuckie E. Cheese is a great date night, actually. A consistent and curated ambiance, live (animatronic) musical performances, artisanal pizza, and no shortage of surrounding stimuli to keep conversations fresh.

Some questions with Spirits of Leo

What musical influences did you look towards while recording “Gossamer Blue”?

There was a pretty eclectic mix of influences on Gossamer Blue. Apart from the more recognized names in post-punk and shoegaze like Cocteau Twins and The Cure, and contemporary bands like Soft Kill or Drab Majesty, the record was modeled in a lot of ways off of Alice in Chains, Sunny Day Real Estate and slower bands like Mineral, Codeine and Seam. These bands are huge influences for me as a guitarist and my approach to putting songs together.

I tend to get odd looks when I say this, but for production inspiration, I've always adored the full-bodied clean tones and aggressive-yet-spacious drum sounds of Metallica's ballads like "Sanitarium" and "One". Inspired by that, I went for a wide-JC-120+delay vibe for all of the guitars and I tuned the snare drum and mic'd the kit to sound like "Angry Chair" by Alice in Chains. I was constantly referencing Alice in Chains for the harmony balances and "Faces in Disguise" by Sunny Day Real Estate for vocal production. Jerry Cantrell and Jeremy Enigk are also both just some of my favorite writers, their structuring and lyricism conjure up vivid images and their songs are incredibly visceral.

What would you say is the current state of shoegaze music in NYC?

There's A LOT of great bands coming out of NY and the surrounding area. Like a lot of the music scene in New York, there's many small tribes of close friends that each make up a scene that's always going. On the heavier side of shoegaze, Plight, Kraus and Mx Lonely come to mind. On the dreamier side of the spectrum, there's Dead Leaf Echo, Minaxi and Sooner. So many bands to name that I hope to book shows with soon. Shoegaze is one of those broad subgenres that contains a ton of variety and because of that, will always be in vogue. What's not to like about pretty vocals over a big wall of sound? Close-ish to NYC bands I love: Doused, Strange Weekend, Tidal Gloom, and so many more.

How many times do you wear a t-shirt before washing it?

I am a strict "wear-once-and-wash" kinda person. Once it's off, it goes in the laundry bag.

Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming album “Gossamer Blue”? What was the driving force behind its creation?

There are a few uniting themes for Gossamer Blue -- grief, rebirth, and anxiety being among them. The title itself is derived from a paint color that I love and have many strong connotations with. The years of 2019-2022 were some intense years to live through for most people. For me in particular, I'd felt like I'd lost sight of myself after the release of Equinox, so creating this album was really my attempt at anchoring myself and finding stability in times of complete uncertainty. A sort of rebirth, rediscovery, and regaining control of one's life. Anxiety and intrusive thoughts have both maintained major, oppressive holds on me for most of my life, and were made much more severe during lockdown and the pandemic. These songs gave me an opportunity to both address what brings me discomfort and learn to detach that anxiety from my identity, if that makes sense.

What was the collaborative process like between all of you while working on “Gossamer Blue”?

Spirits of Leo exists in two realms, on one hand, it's my personal recording project, so for the studio recordings themselves I go in with very specific ideas of both the emotional story I want to tell through the song and how the mood comes across through production. So the writing and recording is very much integrated -- I go through several drafts and demos before ultimately deciding what stays and what goes in each respective guitar riff, bass line, and drum pattern. Once I finish obsessing over recording the guitar/bass parts and map out the drum patterns with a drum machine, that is the final blueprint for the song. Alex then learns the drum machine parts, and we set a date to rehearse, record and decide together what changes best serve the song and performance. Once I feel the instrumentals are sitting together nicely, I finalize the lyrics and record the vocals (the most physically and mentally exhausting part for me, and typically where I procrastinate most).

On the other hand, there is the live realm of Spirits which is a bit of its own entity. I'm extremely lucky to have a brilliant group of musicians who are excited to perform these songs live and bring their perspective and presence to them. I try my best to be deliberate about the performability of the parts during writing/production, but what works in a studio setting doesn't always translate well live. After everyone has locked the parts down, we'll decide on who plays rhythm, lead, guitar interplay, finalize the harmonies, and experiment on our live equipment chain for the best sound in the room. We'll also make structural changes if necessary, link songs together, and come up with segues for the set. I love the process of translating the songs live, because it's like the songs come to life for the first time, with new textures and variances, and unique moments that aren't always repeatable.

How do you feel now that the record is wrapped and set up to release?

I'm still incredibly overwhelmed. For me, an album never fully feels finished until release day. There are always layers I can add, mix tweaks I can make, things I'm unhappy with about the source recording, etc. But there's a moment where those imperfections become a defining part of the record, and you kind of start to appreciate the fact that you're (most likely) the only person in the world who even notices. But apart from that, I'm both relieved and excited for it to finally be out there. There's really nothing like the catharsis of releasing something that you've labored over for years, basically in secret, for it to finally be heard by completely new ears.

If you were given a limitless budget what would you incorporate into your live performances?

An infinite amount of fog, that's really all I want! That, and a complete in-ear monitoring setup. And a travelling sound engineer who knows how to make us sound great on any system, in any room.

What brought on the slightly darker and gloomy atmospheric sound in this record compared to some of your earlier releases?

I think I've been veering closer to this territory for a long time, but didn't quite know how to get there. This is certainly closest I've gotten thus far. Some of the riffs and melodies on the record were early sketches that I reworked into a new context, but back then I didn't know how to make it work. I also used to limit myself in terms of what was "Spirits-friendly" and what wasn't. When I'd initially recorded the first EP, I was in no way trying to make it sound like dream pop. I wanted it to sound like Treasure-era Cocteau Twins mixed with The Police. But then people online started commenting that it sounded like Wild Nothing and Craft Spells, so perhaps on their suggestion I swayed further into exploring that territory on Anastasia and Yearning being a massive fan of both those bands. With Equinox I feel like that was a new beginning for Spirits, which is why I titled it that. Stylistically, Equinox was definitely the catalyst for where we currently are.

What is your go-to Karaoke song? Why?

Probably either Wicked Game by Chris Isaak, or Blasphemous Rumours by Depeche Mode. I love doing an over-the-top Dave Gahan impression and Chris Isaak's sultry falsetto is just insanely good.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Thanks for reading my ramblings here and a huge thanks to The Family Reviews for having us. If you're in the NYC area, we're celebrating the release of Gossamer Blue on Thursday, August 11th at No Aloha in Brooklyn with fellow gazers/post-punks Minaxi, Dahl Haus and DJ sets by Mevius. We'll be performing new songs from the record for the first time and counting down to midnight, when the album is officially released! If you're unable to make that, I hope we're able to chat a show in the near future! -a spirit (aka Ryan)