CHVRCHES FAN PODCAST - #036 SHOW NOTES Official site: www.chvrch.es ​ ​ Shop: www.chvrchesshop.com, chvrchesus.shopfirebrand.com (US), ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ chvrches.firebrandstores.com (UK) ​ TWITTER: @chvrches, @Iain_A_Cook, @doksan, @laurenevemay, ​ @thejonnyscott Contact the podcast: ​ Record Label: @goodbye_records; goodbyerecords.com @chvrchespodcast, ​ ​ www.chvrchespodcast.com, ​ [email protected] More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chvrches ​ ​ 619-631-4433 Fans: @chvrchesfans, @LaurenMayberryF, @ChvrchesIsLife, ​ @CHVRCHESSQVAD, www.reddit.com/r/chvrches/ ​ ANNOUNCEMENT BAND INTRO + #36 for October 8, 2018 ​ INTRODUCTION SONG - CHVRCHES - “Forever” (1) ● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Is_Dead_(Chvrches_album) ● http://chvrch.es/ ● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chvrches Welcome to the 36th CHVRCHES Fan Podcast written on Sunday, September 16 , 2018 and produced on Monday, October 8, 2018. My name is Steve Holden and I’m recording, editing, and publishing today’s podcast in Southern California just outside of the City of San Diego. Today’s podcast is an more in depth look into the band CHVRCHES from their own perspective of just releasing their 3rd album in May called “LOVE IS DEAD.” The song sample that started off the podcast was the 5th song on the new album Love Is Dead called Forever. FAN QUESTION The last CHVRCHES fan question that we posted on our Facebook Fan Page was “What song does Lauren ​ describe in her mind as "the guitar song?” And the answer from David in the UK was correct! Here is Lauren’s ​ answer direct from her. <<< INSERT LAUREN’S ANSWER >>> So the answer was “Tether” and Lauren called it that during her intro to the song “Tether” when CHVRCHES played live at the Bauhaus in Germany in early 2015. You can watch the whole video of that performance with some excellent interview questions on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAt312E8oNg) and ​ ​ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKgpj4V7pTI). Or check out Podcast #11. ​ ​ (http://bit.ly/chvrchespodcast11) ​ ​ The next “How Big Of A CHVRCHES FAN Are You?” question is “Who designed the cover to The Bones Of ​ ​ ​ What You Believe (TBOWYB?)"” You can answer over on the Facebook CHVRCHES FAN PODCAST site ​ (https://www.facebook.com/chvrchespodcast/) [or https://fb.me/chvrchespodcast]). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ WHO ARE CHVRCHES SONG - CHVRCHES - “Forever” (2) ● http://chvrch.es/ ● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chvrches OK that was a little bit more of new Forever . The next thing I wanted to cover was something the band … … posted on their Glass Note Music page just before the release of their 3rd album. I’m just going to read it to you as I think it is well written and it is a great overview of the band, what they believe in and how the operate. So without any further delay here are three question you should have good answers to after this segment -- Who Is CHVRCHES? Or better yet Who Are The CHVRCHES? And Is Love Dead? And answers From CHVRCHES: <<< read the Glass Note Music page >>> https://glassnotemusic.com/artists/chvrches/ IF YOU LOVE DRIVING FAST WITH THE WINDOWS ROLLED DOWN PLAYING TOP 40 RADIO AT FULL VOLUME AND YOU PLAY IN A BAND, YOU USUALLY HAVE ONE GOAL: GET YOUR SONGS OUT OF YOUR GARAGE AND INTO THE WORLDS’ COLLECTIVE CAR SPEAKERS AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, and Martin Doherty certainly fit this bill. They unabashedly adore music of the wind-in-your-hair variety. And, of course, they play in a band, the Scottish synth pop group, CHVRCHES. And yet since emerging in 2013 with the glistening brightness of their … breakthrough single, “Recover,” <<< INSERT RECOVER SEGMENT >>> CHVRCHES have always projected an insularity, a subtle but unmistakable wariness about leaning into their obvious Hit-Song-of-the-Summer-writing potential. At their core, CHVRCHES are true blue Glaswegian punks. They’ve wanted to protect themselves, and protect that undercurrent of melancholy that gives depth to their sunniness. To this end, the band members have always kept their creative process close and tight. They’ve been diligent to the max about managing the way their band is portrayed. And, of course, they have historically produced every piece of music themselves, including their 2013 debut, The Bones of What You Believe, and 2015 follow-up, Every Open Eye. “Certainly not,” was their go-to response, Martin recalls laughing, when asked to consider collaboration. “We knew that if you get led down the wrong path it can completely derail your career.” But if there’s a theme in CHVRCHES’ world as they prepare to release their third record, Love Is Dead, it’s willful, determined openness, both ideologically – more on that in a minute – and in terms of actual creative process. This time around, instead of Lauren disappearing for days at a time, the trio stayed in the same room even while Lauren was writing lyrics. As a result, the album “feels a lot more coherent,” she says. Lauren also consciously pulled from a different psychic well when writing those lyrics, one that’s less introspective and more expansive and imagistic. “I tried to write less about romantic love specifically,” she says. “And more about the overarching concept of love.” And, for the first time ever, CHVRCHES opened their proverbial doors to outside influence. The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart served as the band’s de facto mentor, providing insight Lauren says “really pushed us to focus on the artistic integrity of the album and everything that surrounds it.” Steve Mac co-produced the soaring ode to hope, “Miracle.” <<< INSERT MIRACLE SEGMENT >>> And thanks to some extremely productive time spent in what Lauren calls his “Aladdin’s Cave,” Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia) wound up co-producing eight of the record’s twelve tracks. “We had similar musical tastes and we clicked in the writing process pretty quickly,” Kurstin recalls. “I got to pull out all of the things I don’t have a chance to normally use.” The result is the purest ever distillation of CHVRCHES’ signature pretty gloom. “It makes more sense than anything else we’ve made because it most accurately represents us,” says Martin. “We’ve always had this super difficult side to us – artistic and introspective and angry, but then we also fully embrace commercial music,” he continues. “When we talked about this album, before we even made it, we talked about it that way, we talked about there being two sides to the band. With Love Is Dead, we’ve broadened the appeal, but there are moments that are more difficult than anything we’ve ever done.” This conscious move towards openness in the creative process reflects a bigger, deeper existential theme as well. “We live in a time where the death of empathy is pretty evident,” Lauren explains. “You turn on the news and see story after story about how selfish and unkind people are, but also stories of strength and resilience and resistance. How do we deal with both those things?” That question, of how to honor our justifiable despair about the state of the world, while moving towards hope and love, mirrors CHVRCHES’ sonic blend of dualities. As Lauren exhorts in “ii”, the instrumental / spoken word intro <<< INSERT ii SEGMENT >>> to album closer “Wonderland”: <<< INSERT WONDERLAND SEGMENT >> Truth exists somewhere between the dark and the light It’s that quest for balance that runs throughout Love Is Dead. Lead single “Get Out” is a sprawling crescendo of heartbroken joy, <<< INSERT GET OUT SEGMENT >> and the album’s opening track, “Graffiti,” <<< INSERT GRAFFITI SEGMENT >> with it’s lilting syncopated backbeat follows suit. “Wrote our names along the bathroom walls, graffiti-ing our hearts across the stalls,” Lauren sings. “I’ve been waiting for my whole life to grow old and now we never will.” The song captures a sense of perspective on the passage of time. “Growing up and realizing things aren’t going to be the way you thought they would be,” the singer explains. “The feeling of Stand By Me, ‘I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, did you?’” Then there’s the slinky “Deliverance,” which personifies that classic CHVRCHES blend of punk ethos with a pure pop sound. <<< INSERT DELIVERANCE SEGMENT >> “You don’t hear people singing on the radio about the hypocrisy of religion,” says Iain, “but that’s what’s exciting about it. We were thinking about Like a Prayer era Madonna, << INSERT LIKE A PRAYER SEGMENT >> and Nick Cave, and Depeche Mode’s [on the album] Songs of Faith and Devotion.” The band doesn’t consider their music expressly political, per se, but the urgent, brightly haunted “Graves,” << INSERT GRAVES SEGMENT >> with lyrics like “they’re leaving bodies in stairwells and washing up on the shore/you can look away while they’re dancing on our graves/if you don’t have a heart I can offer you mine,” feels abject and despairing yet joyful in a decidedly topical way. And on, “Miracle,” Mayberry questions “I feel like but I’m falling but I’m trying to fly, where does all the good go?” Speaking of politics, the dreamy “Heaven/Hell,” << INSERT HEAVEN/HELL SEGMENT >>> with lyrics like, “Ais right if I’m a perfect actress/Playing the princess in distress?/Is it alright if I save myself and/If I clean up my own mess?/Is it enough yet, ‘cause I’ve had enough?” gets at an issue CHVRCHES have been dealing with since their very first Twitter follower: what it’s like to be a rock band with a female front person. From the jump, Lauren has been outspoken about the vitriolic sexism and misogyny she was expected to tolerate merely because she’s a female human being singing on a stage.