Soft Science | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: What a great sound. I love that song. That is called Fade. The band is Soft Science. And let's see, we should have, joining us remotely via restream, Katie Haley and Ross Levine on the line with us. Hello, are you there?

0:15 Speaker 2: Hello, can you hear me?

0:18 Speaker 1: Hey, yes, I can hear you both. Is it just the two of you, Katie and Ross? yeah okay welcome to the show i love that song um that is so good i listened uh i listened to the whole album sand but i i especially love that uh it's got such a cool sound to it and you know it's um tell me what that song is about because my interpretation is it has to do is that it has to do with memories which i'm interested in because i'm a hypnotherapists and sometimes I help people to recover lost memories. But, um, that's kind of what the song means to me, but it can, can you tell me what that's about?

0:55 Speaker 1: And then I want to have a broader conversation about the album, but tell me about fade.

1:01 Speaker 3: Uh, I thought basically the, the idea of fade is, uh, about memories and change. And Katie and I, we, we both have teenagers, kids. And when you have a kid, you can really see the change is constant, right?

1:17 Speaker 4: Yeah.

1:19 Speaker 3: So you kind of really feel time. And, you know, and it's how things change suddenly or slowly that all of a sudden seems suddenly where it's like little bits here, a little bit there, a little bit there. And then you realize that it's the accumulation of little things has reached a point where, you know, your whole life is different and it's kind of snuck up on you.

1:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, I've observed that in other people. I don't have any children of my own, but I've noticed, you know, I've heard people talk about that, about that's kind of what having kids is like and how it does kind of affect time and your sense of time and, you know, the part you said about, you know, things kind of sneaking up on you. Um, that, that is something that, that I've heard a lot. So that, that makes sense. Uh, we should mention too, of course, Ross, you're, you're the guitarist and backing vocalist and keyboardist and Katie, you sing and, and, uh, do percussion as well.

2:14 Speaker 1: And, um, I love your voice, Katie. And I, I think on a song like that too, it's, it's just, uh, just, just really, really cool. I like the, um, you know, and there's kind of a dreamy sort of, I mean, part of it's a song in the production, of course, but the, you know, this, the kind of a dreamy, um, element to it. And is that something, Katie, that you sort of strive for in terms of how you sing? Have you always kind of sung that way?

2:38 Speaker 4: Um, well, thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. I'm really glad that, um, that you, that you like how my voice sounds. Um, uh, yeah, I mean, we, I, I mean, I, I feel, I, I, I sing how I sing, but, um, but I mean, we do do some, um, there's, there's, there's some purpose.

3:01 Speaker 2: Right.

3:02 Speaker 4: And I do like kind of sing a little bit, maybe like lighter on some things to have it be more airy and, and dreamy. And, you know, have, have that sound where we use that to kind of, sound and texture that we... Well, yeah, reverb. There's a little magic. Not magic, but a reverb.

3:26 Speaker 1: Production.

3:27 Speaker 4: There's a lot of.

3:28 Speaker 1: Layers of vocals.

3:30 Speaker 2: Yeah.

3:32 Speaker 1: That's why I was wondering, because not everyone can pull that off. I've heard some singers try to pull that off, but you really nail it. And it just works so well on a song like that. Can you tell me a little bit about the theme of the album? Because I feel like the album also, Sand, I feel like it also has kind of a theme to it. It seems like it's about... Um, maybe some of the same themes as, um, a fade specifically about memories and cycles and changes and relationships and all that stuff. But, uh, can you tell me about sand and, and kind of the, the themes of it?

4:11 Speaker 2: Well, uh, sorry.

4:13 Speaker 3: Well, the title, the title track sand is a song we actually had left over from the batch songs that we had for lines. So that is the, the oldest song, uh, on the record. And, um, When we started SoftScience years ago, we kind of had the attitude that if we have an opportunity to do something, we should do it. We should take it up because every time we have an opportunity, it could be the last time we ever have that opportunity.

4:44 Speaker 2: So we need to take advantage of things and.

4:48 Speaker 3: Not take things for granted and think that we'll get a chance for that next time.

4:52 Speaker 2: We'll get them next time. So we put.

4:54 Speaker 3: a lot of effort into the records because we want to make sure they're as good as possible. We don't look back and wish we did something different. Then if we get opportunity to play somewhere, we try our best to do it. We have a lot of limitations because the fact that we have busy lives and kids and stuff and we all don't live in the same town anymore, so it's.

5:14 Speaker 2: A little bit more difficult to get together. But we still make it work.

5:18 Speaker 3: So Sand was basically do it while we can, just seize the moment because you don't know if you'll ever have that chance again and that is kind of the theme of the record in the.

5:33 Speaker 2: Premieres through a few of the songs I.

5:36 Speaker 5: Think it's also go.

5:39 Speaker 1: Ahead Matt I was just going to say referring to what Ross was saying it does feel like there's a certain urgency to the album but yeah go ahead.

5:48 Speaker 4: Katie No, it's always interesting to me because I don't think that we ever really go out when we're making an album intentionally with a theme.

6:01 Speaker 1: Yeah.

6:03 Speaker 4: But it's interesting how this collection of songs does have a lot of lyrically. I think it's just processing this time in our lives. Ross and I collaborate on the lyrics. We have for years.

6:20 Speaker 5: And, um, I just think that it, it's kind of interesting when I, when I step back and it does have this, you know, it's like processing relationships and, and, and memory and, um, thinking about how, you know, and treasuring things, um, treasuring moments that have in your life, like fade into a dream. Um, you know, one day, you know, I know you'll understand, um, um, you know, like Ross said about, you know, Sam, let's do it while we can. And it's really, I don't know. This album does feel a little bit different in that way.

7:03 Speaker 5: When we step back and look at the songs and look at them, it's like this moment in time and about treasuring moments and memories and processing things, processing relationships. So, um, and I, I love that, that kind of magically or, you know, during that course of time and making it like came together like that.

7:25 Speaker 2: Yeah.

7:27 Speaker 1: Um, has the process changed because this is your, is this your fifth album? Is that correct?

7:36 Speaker 4: Yeah.

7:36 Speaker 3: Yeah.

7:37 Speaker 1: I would imagine, I would imagine the process has changed over the course of those.

7:40 Speaker 2: Oh, go ahead, Ross. Yeah, we used to be able to, we all lived in the same town.

7:50 Speaker 3: We had a, I think it was Wednesday night practice, and every Wednesday night we'd get together and work on songs. So we had a lot of time to work on songs together in the same room. And then things got complicated, people moved and got busy, and then we lost the space. So now it's much harder for us to get together. So our previous record lines, we was very compartmentalized ever we were buried because the pandemic he started working on me a little bit before the pandemics have got a little bit together but then it was really compartmentalized with just like people sending recordings their takes in and and we really didn't get to to work on things together and i i think the records i like the lines a lot but uh one of the cool things about um sand is is we got we made it we found the time and we actually got spent some weekends to really hammer stuff out as a band.

8:47 Speaker 3: Obviously, we wish more would be better, but we did make it happen.

8:56 Speaker 3: Scheduling can be rough, but we find weekends and we get together and we work on things. Because Matt, Katie, and I on Wednesday nights figured out parts and bounced ideas off of each other and and you know threw stuff out brought stuff in tried out a ton of different harmonies you know there's a lot more katie came up with a lot more vocal um ideas because just because we had the time to work on stuff and my brother got to work on a lot more interesting guitar work just because you know again we had more time to bounce ideas off each other so it's a little harder than it used to be, but the fact that we.

9:35 Speaker 2: Exist is a victory. Yeah. And that's kind of ties into the theme of the record.

9:40 Speaker 3: Just appreciate that we still get to do this in some, some level and still get opportunities to talk to people like you. And, and we're hoping this next year we're going to actually get out and play some shows. We're hoping to be able to announce some stuff pretty soon.

9:53 Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.

9:54 Speaker 3: Excellent.

9:55 Speaker 1: Speaking of playing shows, I'm curious uh when you do play live as a band do the songs change at all does the the sound the vibe change at all because it seems like um and and It seems like some of this might be a little challenging to replicate live, or maybe not. Maybe it's easy for the unit that you have. Obviously, you've been around a while, you've been together a while as a band, so maybe it's easy.

10:24 Speaker 4: I don't know.

10:24 Speaker 1: But what is it like trying to play these live and do the songs change at all?

10:31 Speaker 4: I would say the songs do not change. We try really hard to kind of sound like the record when we play live. So we, we, we try to replicate this as closely as possible. I mean, it, it will sound a little different because it is live, but yeah, all the, all the parts are there. Excellent.

10:55 Speaker 1: Excellent. And on this album too, did you kind of turn up the guitars a little bit?

11:00 Speaker 4: Um, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

11:19 Speaker 1: But they don't overshadow that sort of dream pop vibe that you've got going, uh, overall. I mean, did, did you intentionally turn up the guitars on that record? Am I just, am I imagining that? Am I, is what I'm hearing really there? It seems like the guitars are louder on sand.

11:37 Speaker 3: Uh, I, um, Kevin, um, uh, Kev Bolas mixed the record and he did a really good job and, and, and, my brother did give feedback to maybe turn the guitars up a little bit. I didn't really realize, think of them as being louder than the previous records myself, but, um, you know, it's, yeah, I have to think about that. So I know cause the initial mixes, the mixes, they were a little bit lower, but they turn them up a bit.

12:07 Speaker 4: Okay.

12:08 Speaker 3: But I don't think of them as loud, but we think of ourselves as a guitar based band.

12:12 Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, for sure.

12:13 Speaker 2: So yeah.

12:15 Speaker 4: They're just very present. They're very present. I think that this album has some of Matt and Ross' best guitar work to date.

12:25 Speaker 3: Really?

12:26 Speaker 2: Okay.

12:27 Speaker 4: In my opinion. Mainly Matt. Mainly, yeah. Well, I'm giving you some credit too there, Rod. Ross can basically play every instrument in the band.

12:40 Speaker 1: Oh, okay.

12:41 Speaker 2: But not every instrument.

12:43 Speaker 4: Jack of all trades. But Matt is especially a really great guitarist.

12:49 Speaker 1: Okay, okay. And by the way, are you guys playing 12 strings? Did I read that correctly?

12:57 Speaker 2: Yeah. We both have Rickenbacker 12 strings.

13:00 Speaker 3: They were our pandemic splurges for recording lines.

13:05 Speaker 2: And then I got jealous cause he got one. So I bought one too.

13:08 Speaker 4: Oh, no kidding.

13:08 Speaker 3: And once you get used to it, it's not so bad.

13:11 Speaker 2: No, the strings is a nightmare. Oh, I bet.

13:14 Speaker 1: Yeah.

13:15 Speaker 2: Yeah.

13:15 Speaker 1: I've heard though, once you get used to playing it, it's not bad, but, but so I'm curious though, what that contribute, like, does that, is that part of what supplies the texture, you know, that I hear in these songs and are you playing 12 strings throughout the album on every track?

13:32 Speaker 3: Not every, um, some, there are some, uh, six string parts and in the leads, but all the rhythms are 12 strings. And, uh, and we basically know wearing our sleeves are, are big influences like lush and ride.

13:47 Speaker 2: Yeah.

13:48 Speaker 3: Have a ton of 12 strings. So like, you know, uh, nowhere and, and smile and, uh, gala they have. So we're, you know, we're not original on this, but we're, we've loved that lush sound. So we were just kind of, went head, head first into it and just, you know, lines was completely all 12 strings. And we almost had this thing, like, we don't want to use a six string because then we can't say it's all 12 strings.

14:13 Speaker 2: This one, we were so melted on it. Okay. And, uh, you know, the next record, who knows?

14:17 Speaker 3: It's just, it was just kind of a, uh, kind of a, uh, I don't know, idea that we just kind of got obsessed with. Right.

14:27 Speaker 2: Right.

14:28 Speaker 1: No, No, that's cool. Like I said, I mean, it sounds great. Do you feel that geography plays a role in your sound? Obviously, you know, Northern California, that whole sort of dream pop shoegaze. I don't even know how you feel about those terms, but I feel like if I didn't know where you were from and I just heard... your music without knowing and someone said, guess, guess where in the, you know, they're an American band, guess where in the United States they're from. I would probably say either California or I would say the West coast more broadly.

15:00 Speaker 1: But I mean, do you feel that soft science is kind of a, are you a product of your environment in a certain sense?

15:08 Speaker 4: Oh, I don't, I don't, I mean, I'll be interested. I don't think you've ever been asked this question. Um, I don't know. I think we're very influenced actually by, you know, bands from the UK.

15:19 Speaker 1: Really?

15:20 Speaker 4: Um, and not that we're not influenced by bands from America too, but, oh yeah, like, um, you know, like Mighty Lemon Drops and Lush and Ride and, um, but, you know, also like Love Not a Surf and, um, things like that. But I don't know. Um, I don't know if the, Ross, what do you think?

15:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a tough one.

15:46 Speaker 1: I stumped you.

15:49 Speaker 2: I know.

15:51 Speaker 6: The titles, you know, when you talk about being called shoegaze or dream pop and dream gaze and all that stuff, it's really abstract.

16:02 Speaker 2: It's such a broad thing. It is.

16:04 Speaker 3: We get called shoegaze sometimes, but we don't sound like a lot of the new shoegaze nowadays.

16:10 Speaker 2: Sure.

16:12 Speaker 3: We sound more like the old shoegaze, but then like, that's why we kind of, and we're way more song oriented. So we lean into pop. We're basically pop songs with, you know, we try to add some mood and reverb to dreamy textures, dreamy textures, but it's really abstract. You know, sometimes we, I was thinking like we call ourselves shoegaze and dream pop because other people have called the shoegaze and dream pop. Yeah.

16:38 Speaker 4: Yeah.

16:38 Speaker 2: Not necessarily because like we, think of ourselves that way?

16:42 Speaker 4: I definitely think we're dream pop. I think sometimes we have more shoe gaze-y songs. But if you listen to, for example, Rides Going Blank Again, you think about Twisterella. That is like a pop song. Totally. I think that we're... When Ross says we're more like an old school, I think we I think if they were to pick a shoegaze band, I think we are more in the ride camp regarding our songs. We have albums that have more kind of like a dark wave element or more shoegaze element that are something more like Sway on our album or Threads got different, but that has a darker element.

17:40 Speaker 4: like slower elements. Then we have like, you know, pop songs like hope. I mean, hope is just a pop song. Fade to me is a pop song that is just, you know, has, has dreamy textures and like long drawn out, you know, uh, notes and things that, that make it feel for lack of dreamy. So, yeah. Um, but I like the range in an album. It's not, we, we, we do try hard to curate, you know, when we were coming up, we're like, okay, well we need another pop song. We need another song. It's like a journey. You know, I like albums that have variations, um, and in, in song styles.

18:21 Speaker 4: So it's, it's almost like a, I was, I like to think of albums too, of like, they're almost like little books in a way. Yeah. Um, you know, it's, if you sit and listen to it, there, there is like a, a story. There is a feeling it's a, it's a mood. Um, And those are albums that I like to listen to. So that's really, I think Ross is probably on the same page with me on that. And that's, that's what we try to do too.

18:52 Speaker 1: No, that makes sense. So let me, yeah, go ahead, Ross.

18:59 Speaker 2: Oh, I just was going to agree with Katie.

19:02 Speaker 3: And like when we make a record record, sometimes we go into it and we want to make a record that sounds like this, you know, kind of definite kind of set a goal, but then it's a large degree just ends up being, you know, what you come up with and it drifts into other things and areas.

19:19 Speaker 2: And then when you have almost have a record.

19:21 Speaker 3: The batch of songs done, you're like, what really, what do we really need to compliment this to kind of round it out? So then maybe at the end you kind of, have a little more intention to come up with a more poppy song or a more dreamy song or something to kind of, uh, scratch that itch to kind of complete the journey of the record to make it seem like a good, uh, uh, you know, kind of round out the experience and have different aspects there. Right.

19:46 Speaker 4: Right.

19:46 Speaker 1: I like that. Um, well, let me ask the, uh, the obvious question. Uh, where does the name come from? Soft science.

19:53 Speaker 4: What is it?

19:54 Speaker 1: Uh, what's behind the name?

19:55 Speaker 4: I'm going to let Ross go with that one. He, he's the one that finally came up with that. We struggled. We were, we were together for a long time, not for a long time, but for, for, for many months. Um, uh, We were in a band before we started Soft Science called California Oranges.

20:16 Speaker 1: Oh, okay.

20:17 Speaker 4: And then when they broke up, we got together. And we didn't have a name for it while we were writing our first album. And then we were like, okay, we need to come up with a name. And then, Ross, how do you take it from there?

20:31 Speaker 3: Well, thinking of a name for a band is really hard because every name for a band has been taken.

20:35 Speaker 2: If you think of anything, you go to Spotify and put it in there.

20:38 Speaker 3: You'll find, you know, three of them right right uh it was going through like just like like going to like wikipedia just like looking anything for just anything that sounds interesting and um in the i just you know found soft science and it wasn't taken so i'm like maybe soft science and it kind of had the idea of soft science being you know.

21:02 Speaker 2: You know things that are more uh.

21:05 Speaker 4: Less set in stone or Well, it's more of a, it's not a hard science. It's not like, you know, there's no, there's no, there's no math involved. Like a humanity, like anthropology, you know, those things.

21:19 Speaker 2: And no math involved.

21:22 Speaker 1: Yeah.

21:24 Speaker 4: But it's, so I was like, that just, when Ross said it, I remember him saying it and he's not practicing. I think I came up with the band name and I was like, Oh my gosh, I love it. I love it so much. That's it.

21:37 Speaker 2: Yeah.

21:39 Speaker 3: And between our first and second record, because we go in hibernation.

21:44 Speaker 2: It takes us a while. It can be four years between records.

21:48 Speaker 3: But another band actually ahead of Utah put out an EP under the name Soft Science. Oh, no.

21:55 Speaker 2: Right before our second record came out. And I was like, what the?

21:59 Speaker 3: You know, we put so much effort in trying to think of a name that no one else had. This other band just comes and takes our name before a second record's coming out.

22:06 Speaker 4: Right.

22:06 Speaker 2: So I emailed them.

22:09 Speaker 3: I didn't get a response for a super long time. And then all of a sudden they got back to me and they're like, okay, sorry for the delay. We've been thinking, all right, we'll change our name. We thought you guys had broken up because you haven't done anything in a while. We have a new record coming out in a few months. And they said, on one condition, will you buy our t-shirts? We just made a batch of t-shirts.

22:31 Speaker 1: Oh my God.

22:32 Speaker 2: So I'm all, okay. We, we bought a, they were really good shirts.

22:36 Speaker 1: Oh really?

22:36 Speaker 2: Cool design.

22:37 Speaker 3: So we just, we bought their, uh, we bought their shirts and started selling them through our band camp.

22:41 Speaker 2: And the shows and it worked out.

22:43 Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny.

22:45 Speaker 2: They changed their name and that was it.

22:47 Speaker 1: Oh, that's great. That's great.

22:48 Speaker 4: We have one of our first t-shirts. That's how that came about.

22:51 Speaker 2: No kidding.

22:53 Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool.

22:54 Speaker 4: That was our first t-shirt.

22:55 Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, that's funny. I've, I've, I've heard a lot of, um, interesting stories when it comes to merch, but not nothing quite like that. That's amazing. How many, how many shirts was it?

23:07 Speaker 2: Like how many did you have to buy? I, it's, it wasn't a huge amount.

23:12 Speaker 1: Yeah.

23:12 Speaker 2: It was a few dozen.

23:13 Speaker 4: Oh, okay.

23:14 Speaker 3: Maybe like a hundred shirts.

23:16 Speaker 1: Oh, that's quite a few.

23:18 Speaker 4: Yeah.

23:21 Speaker 1: That's great. I love that. I love that. Um, Well, so I'm going to let you both go in a couple of minutes, but I'm going to close our conversation with another great track from the album, Spinning. What can you tell me about this song? It's interesting to me lyrically, but what should we know about the song Spinning?

23:46 Speaker 4: Well, I know what it's about. It's really just about being caught in a loop conversation.

23:53 Speaker 2: Yeah.

23:54 Speaker 4: Uh, with someone, you know, and we've all had those moments, um, you know, where you're just like, um, you know, you just, the communication is just being blocked or no one's listening or, um, you know, you don't feel like you're getting through, um, and that frustration there. Um, so that's what, that's what spinning's about. Very literal, I guess.

24:22 Speaker 1: But but also but also relatable everyone's uh experienced that uh certainly so.

24:27 Speaker 4: Oh yeah yeah yeah it's so frustrating.

24:30 Speaker 1: Absolutely 100 um very good so we'll hit that track in a moment but also i want to ask you uh where is the best place to go online for our listeners to keep up with everything that soft science is doing uh we.

24:43 Speaker 2: Have a i should have this memorized but i'm gonna that's okay. Pull it up. You can go to us.

24:49 Speaker 3: We're on Instagram and Facebook and we can buy most of our stuff through band camp at, uh, what in our band camp address is soft science band dot band cap.com. Soft science band dot band camp.com. And you can buy all, uh, or records and t-shirts there. Um, and, uh, at Instagram, we are at, uh, so it's just instagram.com slash soft science band.

25:23 Speaker 2: So if you put soft science at soft science band, you'll find us.

25:26 Speaker 1: Okay. Wonderful.

25:27 Speaker 2: And, uh, go ahead. Oh, sorry.

25:31 Speaker 3: And, uh, you know, we'll keep things updated. We have some shows, uh, that we're looking to announce soon. Uh, they're getting finalized. Uh, and that's where you can find out.

25:41 Speaker 1: Oh, very good. Very good. I'm glad you're on band camp too. Band camp is wonderful, very artist friendly. And you get, you know, if you get music from band camp, you get a high quality file, uh, which is something a lot of people don't realize. But Katie and Ross, I do want to thank you both for joining us today. We're going to close out with the song Spinning, another one of my favorites from the album. The album is called Sand. Everyone should check it out. But we'll definitely do this in the future as you're releasing new music or maybe if you put out another single.

26:09 Speaker 1: But again, Katie and Ross, thank you both so much for joining us today.

26:12 Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having us.

26:14 Speaker 1: Absolutely. We'll do it again in the future.

26:16 Speaker 4: All right.

26:17 Speaker 1: We'll let you go.

26:17 Speaker 4: Take care.

26:18 Speaker 1: Bye-bye. All right, that is Katie and Ross from the band Soft Science. And again, I love the album, Sand, and I love their sound. This is so good. But let's give this another, well, another spin. The track is called Spinning. And again, the band is Soft Science.