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 Light as butterflies, melodious and harmonious tunes trickling out of your stereo to fill the space between your ears with a ray a Californian sunshine or more commonly described as Mystic Folk or Medieval music....that’s Winter Flowers in a nutshell!
A quintet, now based in Los Angeles after having winded their way down the West coast of The USA, Winter Flowers are Astrid Quay, Christof Certik, Gavin Toler, Nick Sapiro and Sasha Smith, collectively arranging vocals, guitars, bass, piano, mandolin, woodwinds, glockenspiel and so many more into sweet-sounding compositions.
Having released an eponymous debut album in 2006, 2007 presents itself as a blossoming year for the LA 5, with what will no doubt turn out to be a sought-after new release on March 27th, an opportunity to give a Madonna song the Winter Flowers treatment for a tribute album being expected later on this year and another Lp in the making....
Hoping that they will also find the time to come and sow some musical seeds on our European shores, Winter Flowers gracefully take some time out of their busy schedule to tell me all about the aforementioned projects and more...
 Florence: Your first album ‘Winter Flowers’ was released here in The States in September 2006. What was people’s reaction to it?
Gavin: It was an interesting first step. Most of the songs on that record I had written in the early incarnation of the band, so I look at that Lp as a catalogue of a certain period. It really is the primordial beginning of the Winter Flowers, starting in Seattle, moving down to San Francisco and ending up in Los Angeles.
Cristof: This band has been around for a pretty long time but we just never got around to making a record. When we did get a chance to do it, we just decided to pull up a bunch of old songs and get them recorded before they ‘disappear’.
Gavin: Actually that album was not our first record!
Our first recording together is the material we are working on right now at producer Rob Campanella’s studio.
Cristof: Still!
Gavin: That’s like another whole record that’s gonna be coming out later on. We started making this record with Rob but one day we were playing with The Dead Meadow at Spaceland when some gentleman approached us and asked if we wanted to put out some of the demos that we had made much earlier. Our demos were very short and he wanted a full length record. That’s when we decided to add much older songs and release them first, before we release the record we are working on right now.
It was a way to get something out and familiarise people with Winter Flowers.
Florence: It’s a beautiful and unusual album but you seem so excited by forthcoming projects...
Gavin: It’s hard to say...I guess I am excited by every project that we’ve worked on.
However it’s a weird thing for me because of the way we’ve made records so far, by the time we’re done recording and mixing them I’ve heard these songs so many times that I literally have to stop listening to them. I can’t listen to an album for a long time. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that first CD but I did put it on the other night, liked it and was so happy!
Florence: I’ve listened to the four new and wonderful tracks that are to be part of an Ep coming out in March.
Tell me more about that.
Cristof: We’ve just finished that a couple of weeks ago.
In fact it’s just one side of an Ep, this other side will be The Chapin Sisters, a local sisters act.
They sing harmonies and they look cute.
 Florence: Is that as a prelude to your forthcoming Lp?
Astrid: Not at all.
The idea came from Paul Beahan. He runs Manimal Vinyl.
Cristof: He set up a label so he’s putting out this record.
He’s also doing a Madonna tribute album that we’re gonna have a song on too.
Astrid: He wanted to do a picture disc where there is a photograph on vinyl.
Gavin: That’s cool enough that we had to jump at the chance to do it.
Cristof: That picture disc is just a limited run for collectors, so once it’s out we will be free to put out these songs however we like, so we might use them again....maybe put out a CD, include them in an album...we just don’t know yet.
Gavin: It’s mostly gonna be heard by vinyl.......
Florence: Nerds?
Gavin: People!
Vinyl people, oftentimes have a lot of influence in the musical world.
Florence: 2007 is shaping up to be a good year for The Winter Flowers!
Cristof: Yes! We have the picture disc, we have a song on the Madonna tribute album coming out and potentially the record we are doing with Rob could possibly come out this year or at least it will be finished this year, being released early next year, and we are also talking about recording a Christmas album this year but we’ll see what happens.
Florence: A Winter Flowers Xmas Lp?
Tell me everything...
Cristof: Every December we do only Xmas music. We have a whole set of Xmas songs. Those kinds of albums are so great. All the best groups did them, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Jackson Five...even Neil Diamond has got one for Christ’s sake!
Florence: To mention the album you are working on right now with Rob. Is it in the same vein as what you have already given us or are you deviating from that?
Cristof: It’s gonna sound a lot better, the playing is more precise...everything is better about it.
Gavin: It’s more hi-fi, it’s bigger sounding, like it’s reaching for the sky, and Rob is producing!
Cristof: You could say that both Lps represent the same time period but our vinyl Ep is really the new direction that we are taking, which may not be a complete change yet but it’s a transition.
Florence: Effectively those four tracks have a little extra something which make them particularly exquisite. Can I say that they are more layered?
Gavin: Yes, more layered and it’s got electric guitars.
Cristof: It’s denser and has a rockin’ quality to it.
Gavin: We’re sort of expanding our sound right now. Just because we want to! Maybe adding more electric guitar and mellotron, just like we did on the Ep.
Florence: Your sound has been described as the meeting of Folk and principally Medieval music...
Nick: We’ve all gone through a Rock’n Roll phase, but that’s over now!
We need to explore other parts of music.
Gavin: I mostly listen to Rock and Folk music.
I don’t like to think of our music as being Folk music but more as epic and beautiful.
Florence: So you don’t really accept the Folk tag you’ve been given.
Astrid: It’s just not accurate.
Gavin: Personally I don’t. People will say that because the stuff we have recorded is often played on acoustic guitar and yes there are elements of Folk music but it’s also classic and ultimately trying to achieve something epic about it.
Cristof: The term ‘Folk music’ is being thrown around a little too liberally, since the 60s even. It’s hard to say what it even means anymore, I guess to most people it means acoustic music. They’ll call Tracy Chapman Folk music, bafflingly!
In it’s classic term it’s music which has no author, which comes from the earth, is handed down through the generations. It’s part of traditions rather than pop culture.
Also you’ve mentioned the ‘Medieval’ thing...we live in a time where there are so many records, we listen to so many bands, have been to so many concerts and we’ve all experienced music in so many ways...
of course in America we didn’t have the middle ages or the renaissance, but it doesn’t matter because the music is just spinning around everywhere, you can hear and really feel music from anywhere at any time with the wonders of modern technology.
It’s been the case for a long time. My father is European and was a Renaissance musician so I grew up hearing stuff like that all the time.
I am not saying that I am the only one who contributes to this whole thing, but the way I hear music and the way I think different parts fit together is largely based on things that I heard in Renaissance and Medieval music. I am not trying to imitate it but I really like some elements of it. I just think that it was a wonderful time for music.
Florence: What you do is so intricate, light and delicate, how do you fit on the LA music scene?
Astrid: Everybody is so different. We’ve got lots of friends who seem to get lumped into a certain category but I don’t think that none of us really sound like each other. We do hang out and sometimes do things on each others records but that’s it.
Florence: Do you work very hard at developing your own sound rather than just honouring your influences?
Astrid: It’s actually easier not to work at it.
It’s easier to just do your thing.
Gavin: I think that it comes organically, it’s not something that we are trying to achieve.
Florence: I know that it’s not that easy for other bands.
Gavin: You’ve got to be able to hear the sound that is coming from inside of you or some distant voice that is talking to only you.
Astrid: We’re not saying that it’s easy to come up with songs, it’s still a difficult process but it’s easier to not think about trying to be like something else. When you’re writing songs it’s better not to think about what you’ve gained from your influences. Just let things happen.
Gavin: We work very hard at writing the songs and all the arrangements. It’s a very long process because we always want to get every single harmony just right, every single musical instrument just right so it fits with everything else and it all flows.
Florence: People should appreciate your attention to details.
It’s the opposite of noise!
Gavin: That’s why we don’t play Indie Rock. What we do is more ambitious musically. It would be easy to be an Indie Rock band and fit right in that music scene. Personally I admire bands, for instance from the last ten years, who did something outside of that kind of sound . Guys like The Beachwood Sparks, Royal Trux...
Florence: Are these people you might draw inspiration from?
Gavin: Maybe a slight bit. I like these bands but the music comes to me when I get myself more into a certain state of being. Sometimes it helps just going to the mountains or the ocean.
Nick: I admire almost everything that I hear so I guess I am probably influenced by it all, but it’s not so much a direct influence on the work that I want to do in my life but it puts more colours into my crayon box from which I can paint the world.
Astrid: Sometimes I listen to things that are like a cleanser for your mind, like smooth Jazz...
I grew up around a lot of Jazz. I don’t want to make jazzy sounding things but sometimes when I am doing harmonies I will come up with something sounding like Manhattan Transfer and we have to change that...
Cristof: Or sometimes we keep them! There are a few Manhattan Transfer moments in our songs and we challenge people to find them.
Florence: There are five people in the band, so what are your writing roles, partnerships?
Cristof: Everything on the first record is mainly Gavin’s.
Gavin: A couple of songs are from Cristof and then we worked on the arrangements and harmonies together. Everybody makes up their own parts for the song.
Astrid: There is always vetoing and changing stuff!
Cristof: I love the sound of a band playing together. Hearing a band, where the focus isn’t really on one person and you can hear this melting of different ideas all coming together. It’s such a great magic thing. As an analogy, it’s like being asked what your favourite colour is.
That’s an absurd question because what’s amazing is the combination of colours. When you put one colour next to another one and the magic of these colours comes out.
Gavin: Just like Jimmy Page talked about alchemy....
Cristof: When composing songs, there is the initial writing of the words and music and then there is also the vibe that is created by the people in the room and that is also part of composing.
That said you can make a beautiful record with only one person, a singer-songwriter, it’s just a different vibe.
 Florence: How about playing live? Touring?
Gavin: We haven’t been touring since the first record came out but we hope to do something this summer. We are trying to sort something out with another band. We don’t have anything planned as we haven’t had a chance to look in that direction yet. Also instead of just trying to go on tour, at the point we are now we want to seek out financial support from a record label.
Florence: You are part of a large but quite close knit artistic community where there is a lot of mutual admiration, moral support and friendship, most of it gravitating around Rob Campanella’s LA studio, which is gorgeous to see and be a part of.
Somehow you’re setting a good example to newer kids on the block...
Gavin: I do feel that way. I’m not mad that friends of mine in bands are doing well. I just think that it’s fantastic.
Astrid: And nobody is trying to do the same thing as anybody else.
I am certainly talking about the people we are friends with.
Somebody might sell a song, or someone else might go on tour with another band, somebody else might get signed...when it happens it’s just awesome. People keep going at what they are doing.
However, if anybody is to set an example it shouldn’t be for camaraderie but good musicianship. Being friends is good but it doesn’t necessarily make for great music. If you feel that you want to play music, play music.
Just make sure you really feel it!
Florence: How about a message to the world from The Winter Flowers?
Gavin: Everyone should buy the new Lavender Diamond album, as well as the new Dead Meadow, coming out soon and of course The Chapin Sisters/ Winter Flowers picture disc.
Florence: May I suggest that people should buy that one first and if they’ve got a few bucks left go looking for Lavender Diamond and Dead Meadow...
Cristof: Actually people should buy three copies of our record, so they can have each side displayed on the wall and one copy on their record player.
Nick: For me it’s all about peace, prosperity...let’s not blow ourselves up.
Astrid: Have a good time and laugh, God damn it!
Words: Florence ACHERY
www.myspace.com/winterflowers
www.winterflowers.info
www.manimalvinyl.com |
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