SeeYouSpaceCowboy, ‘Coup De Grâce’ | The Album Story

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Connie Sgarbossa has been ready for the prospect to make a SeeYouSpaceCowboy album like this for a very long time. Although the band had by no means caught to 1 type throughout their practically decade-long assault, there have been plenty of elements that meant {that a} undertaking of the inventive grandiose of ‘Coup De Grâce’ couldn’t simply materialise. For one, and she or he would be the first to confess it, she merely didn’t have the psychological capability, spending a big stretch of the previous couple of years battling habit on and off and simply attempting to only about preserve her chin above the water. However now, with a recent perspective and a clear thoughts and physique, she has harnessed the inventive capabilities that needed to lie dormant till the appropriate second.

“There’s this notion that music saves lives,” she states. “I at all times felt it will be cathartic to make the type of album we have been made with [2021’s] ‘The Romance Of Affliction’. However the fact is that I nonetheless OD’d and was at dying’s door two weeks after we completed recording it. It didn’t make me really feel that a lot better. It was a really short-term repair, and that basically disenchanted me.”

“Then when it got here round to creating this report and being clear and never in that place, I used to be like, ‘Okay, possibly simply screaming into the void isn’t as useful because it as soon as was’. Maybe I’m maturing a bit extra, and that was simply delayed due to the shit that I used to be coping with for thus a few years. This album is far more creatively formidable due to that.”

And which may be the understatement of the yr. An idea album happening on a dancefloor in the course of a seedy lounge membership on the finish of the world, ‘Coup De Grâce’ is a tour-de-force of affection, lust and longing. Permitting Connie to precise her passions for the whole lot from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge and German expression cinema to graphic novel classics equivalent to Sin Metropolis and the artwork type of burlesque, in addition to loads of nods to the hardcore scene, it’s a singular second in time propelled via a lens of scene-leaning brilliance. It’s attractive, sinister and sensationally constructed. An album that builds the type of world that you just want you can fall into, it is usually a bit of artwork that retains you in your toes. It’s SeeYouSpaceCowboy at their most vibrant and cruel, and Connie couldn’t be extra ecstatic that they might deliver it to life.

“This whole story is my factor. Each outfit that you just see the band sporting is one thing I went out and located. Each shot in each video got here from me operating round and saying what was subsequent. Being a inventive director for different bands is my dream job, however doing it for my very own was very nice, too. Figuring out that that is what we have been shifting in direction of, that is what we wished to occur. It was actually motivating for me as a result of this feels much more superior than the rest we’ve performed.”

That’s why Rock Sound have sat down with Connie to peel again the layers of each facet of this fantastically daring assortment of songs and see what secrets and techniques lie inside…

THE SOUND

Should you have been to go to a SYSC present in 2019, you’d have wanted to have all of your wits about you. It was a complete warzone. Popping out of the native San Diego hardcore scene, violence was at all times the order of the day, which is why the band’s early materials felt so frantic and fierce. Nonetheless, all through the previous couple of years, as they’ve travelled additional afield, Connie has observed how the temper at their exhibits has modified. Extra individuals have been there to leap up and down, sing alongside and dance like nobody was watching than throw fists on both aspect of the pit. Although she was initially uncertain of this shift, Connie realised that embracing this new method of performing meant they might additionally embrace the type of musical influences they adored, which wouldn’t have been attainable previously.

“I missed the violence,” Connie laughs. “However I feel I’ve embraced issues an increasing number of, and that’s what made me take into consideration how the entrance of the room may be enjoyable. That’s what clicked in my thoughts. Let’s make this all of this much more dancey. Let’s make this much more enjoyable.”

On one aspect, that got here from returning to their very early roots, throwing in much more of the sasscore parts that outlined the likes of The Blood Brothers. On the opposite, it meant expressing their love for 00’s UK indie, with the type of foot-tapping beats that Bloc Occasion and Foals have been recognized for dealing out. It even meant plunging into the music of the time the report takes place, writing clean lounge tracks to function narration and interludes on the identical time. The end result appears like a celebration of the whole lot that various music has to supply. From Alesana to Killing The Dream, Ceremony to The Pink Gentle String, being so open to many technique of expression meant that the colors splattered towards this formidable canvas may sparkle all of the extra.

“Cowboy has at all times had this incessant want to alter after each album. We have to imbue it with one thing totally different, and since I wished to do one thing extra formidable, this was the appropriate time to push ahead on this method. If we’re going to do that, then we’re going to commit. We are going to write an indie rock music. We are going to write lounge songs. There are nonetheless songs which have breakdowns, however there may also be driving bass and music to shake your ass to. It simply needs to be an extension of us. That’s crucial factor.”

THE COLLABORATORS

While you have a look at the names that SYSC hit as much as seem on ‘Coup De Grâce’, it will be simple to say that it was merely a number of among the best expertise the scene at the moment has at its disposal. But it’s way more than that, as every visitor star was chosen as a result of they fitted the music they appeared on completely. Kim Dracula’s sporadic uniqueness is readymade for the chaotic thrills of ‘Lubricant like Kerosene’, Courtney LaPlante’s potential to change between sensual melancholy and guttural devastation lent itself superbly to the drama of ‘To The Dancefloor For Shelter’, and the Emery-esque melodies of ‘Rhythm And Rapture’ have been tailormade for nothing,nowhere.’s emotional pipes.

“It wasn’t a complete factor of going via the business and having managers discuss to managers,” Connie admits. “I texted Courtney, and she or he mentioned sure. I DM’d Kim, they usually mentioned sure. nothing,nowhere. was a case of calling again to my roots as a result of I really like SoundCloud rap. There was a methodical motive for all of them. We didn’t go into this pondering that we’d get a bunch of options or something. However there was a thought course of when it got here to it, ensuring that they did slot in thematically and it made sense.”

The ultimate visitor can also be our narrator, embodied gorgeously by iRiS.EXE, who croons smooth, sepia-toned jazz and lounge at the beginning, center, and finish of the album’s scorched story. One of many very first concepts that Connie shared with the band regarding this idea is a voice that appears like house base inside the twists and turns of the report, a tranquil and timeless information to a world going up in flames.

Although having so many voices concerned on this macabre story could be loads to absorb for a lot of a band, for SYSC, it stems from having one foot at all times within the underground. Alongside Connie, additionally, you will hear guitarist Ethan Sgarbossa, bassist Taylor Allen and drummer AJ Tartol throw their tones into the combo. Creating such chaos, alongside inviting so many different highly effective voices into the combo, is one thing that Connie thrives inside and solely permits her creativity to blossom much more.

“It comes from a love of screamo,” she smiles, at all times stoked to speak in regards to the music that has guided her through the years. “It will at all times really feel just like the craziest factor ever for me listening to bands like that, listening to all people with totally different cadences. It’s one thing that we wished to hold over into Cowboy, and we undoubtedly push ourselves and write crazier vocal elements due to it.”

THE LYRICS

The concept behind ‘Coup De Grâce’ is that you’re watching a bit of piece of paradise away from all the skin world’s mayhem. In the identical method that burlesque golf equipment supplied an escape again within the Nineteen Twenties, this explicit institution that we discover ourselves in is shelter from an apocalypse. Totally different tales are enjoying out inside its partitions, all being noticed and retold by the band, with the flames of oblivion edging ever nearer to the door. For Connie, this setting represents two totally different elements of her. A pair of traits that mix decadence and hazard, intimacy and depth.

The primary is hardcore and the solace that it has supplied for her all through her life. Figuring out that it doesn’t matter what, there’s a present to be discovered the place you’ll be able to specific your self freely has at all times proved to be a crutch in her life, even in her darkest moments.

“The concept of the world burning down round me and me saying, ‘I fucking hate my life, I hate the whole lot, I need to go to a present’. That was true for me as a 14-year-old child, and it’s true for me now. That performed into the idea, however I additionally wished it to be separate from that. I didn’t need it to be in the way in which that hardcore bands talk about unity on a regular basis and having one another’s backs. Extra of a metaphorical method, with the dancefloor as the main target.”

The opposite path that we go down is certainly one of love and lust. Regardless of being non-monogamous for a few years now, it is just since turning into clear that Connie has realised that such a way of life was truly an enormous a part of her relatively than a response to her habit. Now, relatively than feeling disgrace and guilt for feeling a sure method, she feels freedom and delight in permitting her emotions to thrive. From a one-night stand turning into a long-lasting connection to specializing in how necessary intercourse and love may be when it appears like the whole lot else is crumbling round you, she felt snug writing songs in regards to the sheer thrill of bodily contact, even whether it is present in a method that many don’t conform to.

“I’ve the need for all of these items, and now I can speak about it. Non-monogamy may be actually romantic. It may be loopy. It may be an explosion of emotions. It’s one thing that exists regardless, and you’ll’t simply sit again and faux that it doesn’t. It’s about how likelihood encounters can develop into one thing inside you greater than it was imagined to. I’ve been in a position to now write about ideas that echo my life and the companions I’ve had. It’s one thing that I take pleasure in regardless that there are individuals who will look down on it. A core a part of me pisses off lots of people, however that’s simply who I’m.”

THE TITLE AND ARTWORK

The concept of romantic connection with out boundary is displayed inside the image that adorns the quilt of ‘Coup De Grâce’. Two ladies are locked in a passionate embrace with nothing else in sight – simply this second of closeness, with smiles creeping throughout their lips as they lean in direction of one another. It’s essentially the most crisp and direct art work that SeeYouSpaceCowboy has put collectively, and there’s a motive for that.

“That is an album that’s an acceptance of issues relatively than a critique,” Connie nods. “It permits for darkness and sultriness and sexiness. It’s a very frank have a look at what we do behind closed doorways the place no person can choose us. These areas are for us the place we are able to really feel secure. However then there may be nonetheless a little bit of hazard there, very like at a hardcore present the place you can additionally get your tooth knocked out.”

The title works in the identical method. The definition of a Coup De Grâce is a dying blow, a knockout end. For Connie, these blows come within the type of issues which might be way more intimate. A glance throughout the room, a hand brushing on the small of your again, a phrase that tells you that issues between you and one other have modified perpetually. Although on the skin of this membership, the Coup De Grâce is the world burning to ashes, inside, it’s way more private. Very similar to Shakespeare wrote ‘These violent delights have violent ends’ in Romeo & Juliet, right here the actions of the characters the band have created transfer in ways in which may have devastating repercussions. However the place’s the enjoyable in not dipping your toes in?

“It could all imply so many alternative issues to me, and that’s what I preferred about it,” Connie states. “It grew to become the right illustration of those moments in time, be that all through the course of an evening, or the course of your life. It’s a phrase, a phrase, a second, a glance. These are the issues that I cling onto.”

THE FUTURE

The factor that you must always remember about SeeYouSpaceCowboy is that nothing is perpetually. By the point the smouldering wreckage of ‘Coup De Grâce’ has subsided, the band will already be serious about who they need to be subsequent. Although many might need they might be a selected model of themselves for extra than simply an album cycle, that may by no means be a actuality. The band will at all times be no matter Connie and Co need it to be, and if that doesn’t slot into your notion of them, then that’s robust luck.

So just remember to take in each single second of this gorgeous piece of labor, a contemporary traditional within the making. By the point you have got gotten your head round each nuance, each reference, and each romantic swoon, SeeYouSpaceCowboy will already be far off within the distance. It’s as much as you to attempt to sustain.

“Cowboy is just not for anyone else however us,” Connie concludes proudly. “It’s an entity and illustration of the individuals in it. We’ve at all times performed what we’ve got performed, and it has at all times been satisfying to me on the time. These albums are postcards of my life, and that’s what they’ll at all times be.”