Nowhere else does a band feel more like a living, breathing entity than with Circa Survive. A sum of several powerfully unique and creative parts, the band visited the Baeble office hot on the heels of the release of their sixth album The Amulet. After performances of new songs like "Lustration," "Flesh and Bone," and the album's title track, some of the band members sat down to discuss the new record, how the recording process has changed over the years, and how their personal lives intersect with the band.
Together for an impressive 13 years strong, the members of Circa Survive have lived a large part of their lives together in this band. In the video they discuss revisiting their first two albums, Juturna" and "On Letting Go", while on tour earlier this year, and how the process of recording Descensus and their newest album, The Amulet, felt different from past recordings. The band has seen birth, divorce, and addiction, amongst life's many experiences, over the years, and as these experiences have shaped each individual band member, they have shaped the band as a whole. In The Amulet, singer Anthony Green says, "the band finds acceptance of themselves as musicians and individuals."
Known for their dynamic and intimate performances and recordings, Circa Survive did not disappoint when it came to their new record and live session. Most tellingly, guitarist Colin Frangicetto said it was one of the first times he was able to sit down and love and appreciate something he's recorded.
Transcript
Why do I always call it "Babble?" - Is it Baeble? - I thought it was "Babble. " I say "Babble. " It's Baeble Sorry about saying Babble. Now shit, I'm Anthony. - And you guys are? - Circa Survive. Oh, should I do that? And we're Circa Survive. Fed by hand and caught with force Our bed, sweet death will foreclose on everybody's tongues We'll freeze and break our heart My God who's left to conceal the cross I don't want to be the one I don't want to be the anchor on your chest, unfed Have you ever been asleep I was only keeping up to see you weep, unfold Inside your catacomb, the marble's colder than ice Our match is damp, lit with a separate hand I see into your world, you make no effort to hide The tourniquet, candles in a salt ring will dance You don't have to repent tonight at all Tongues will freeze and break your heart My love who's left to conceal the cross I don't want to be the one I don't want to see the moment you forget, unkept In the sharpening of teeth You will have to feel the grind of the concrete vibrate Beneath your fingernails they'll find small pieces of stone You'll face the sun, cut with the pressure on Inside your catacomb, the marble's colder than ice Our match is damp, lit with a separate hand I see into your world, you make no effort to hide The tourniquet, candles in a salt ring will dance You don't have to repent tonight Stargaze in the moonlight, we'll burn You don't have to defend our love at all No, no My God who’s left to oh Inside your passageway My love who’s left to cross Inside your precious stare They'll eat us all alive in there - The question of what our band sounds like isn't annoying. What's annoying is that I've been in this band for like 13 years and I still can't talk, I can't articulate what that is. Not to cop it out, whatever these guys are, going to have better way to say it. But I think it's just something that you have to experience. You know, could down the rabbit hole of it's atmospheric, whatever, I get into this habit of saying "psychedelic punk. " Just because I thought that sounded so cool to say. So when someone's like, "What's your band sound like?" "Psychedelic punk. " You don't know what that is, so it's like, "Yeah, what?" Like easy fit. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's just you just have to listen to it and experience it. Drilled to the chest, the amulet receives our - Yeah, so I can tell you about our new record. It's called The Amulet. It's our sixth... - Sixth... - Sixth album. The mirror scar... - We put out a record a couple of years ago called Descensus, and I feel like the...that time in our lives was very much like us kind of falling out of place with each other, our relationships were sort of strained from time, and we were all going through different things. One was going through divorce, one was going through drug addiction. And lots... we were very disconnected from each other, and the record kind of was us coming together and kind of therapeutically going over that. And I feel like The Amulet has sort of like what came after that, was sort of like this acceptance of all who we are. There are some things you can change, and there are some things you just can't. And I feel like for this record, The Amulet sort of gives this like idea of acceptance, you know, a resolve of acceptance, not hope, but acceptance, and it was like, almost like an answer to the question of Descensus for me. - I love that. I think it's super true. - That's sick, so I just like made that up on the spot, like riffin' it like off the top of my head! Caught in the side swipes, attention roulette We already paid our debt Label the outlier particularly well And managed to keep our place Itching your skin 'til it’s swollen and red You never remember the price Holding your heels just to balance the weight Like only a liar can shake And you shone in a way Right through my hands, despite my place Until you woke from the trance Echo my fear, they brought you here So we can fade out Sentencing might be a glorious day We’re skipping the excess steps Avoid the arrangements and bury the change I’ll never be honest again Oh at least you act so well You’re still guilty in your home Sirens speak over your veil I’ll release all you’ve felt And you shone in a way Right through my hands, despite my place Until you woke from the trance Echo my fear, they brought you here So we can fade out It’s weighing me down It’s crushing me down It’s wearing me out Oh oh, oh oh Itching your skin 'til it’s swollen and red We never remember the price The ossuary will overflow A stench like nobody should know Holding your heels just to balance the weight Like only a liar can shake Taken by the garden snake A sound like nobody could fake - Well, I mean, I can only speak for myself in this, but I feel like every time the band goes in to make a record, or we go into make music together, we're really just kind of going back into this mind, so to speak, that we've been going at since the day we came together. And the direction is, you know, sort of mysterious but it's mostly just us trying to get close to this feeling of making music that speaks truly to the heart and soul of you. - We had just done these two tours where we revisited playing "Juturna" live, and "On Letting Go" live. That stuff was fresh in my mind again, and I wanted to sort of like space out there, try some of that weirder stuff again. - t's a totally fun process now, where I think before, maybe before Descensus, it had a bit of stress related to it. - Yeah. That aspect of us doing a tour or something, and then parting ways to go in our personal lives for a while, and then not seeing each other really that much until we're like boom, in the studio. "What's going on? What's up?" And then the energy just flows, that's something that's totally new from Descensus and this album, and it's like, it feels really magical again. Like it felt like on the first record when we first went down in the basement and started jamming. Have you kissed the ground, in service of the needless? Forgotten face found tucked away And vacuum black This ghost has been with you all along My voice is lost, inherently violent We already made our casket stand Trust when you’re dead, you wanted it so bad That you didn't see how fucked it was All the pulses were a line, anesthetize you waste away In the city you wept a grave, decay Drilled to the chest, the amulet receives our Forgotten face, and in her place The mirror scar has grown And lost its feel long ago My voice is lost, inherently violent We already made our casket stand Trust when you’re dead, you wanted it so bad That you didn't see how fucked it was All the pulses were a line, anesthetize you waste away In the city you wept a grave, decay You disrupt the phase Now we can speak in opposites Our intersected hands oh... Oh mirror starts to wane Will she outlast the revenant Intersected eyes decay You're always on your knees on time You're always on your way out You're so eager to please sometimes You're always on your way out - I've had a pretty long journey of trying to figure out what self-love is all about. And for, I think the last five albums before this one, make it and then I'd kind of be scared to listen to it because I'm like, it's like the same thing as looking in the mirror, you're going to find something, you're going to just fixate on and hate it. And this one was just, I had none of that. You know, every day I was just listening to it constantly and loving it. And now I think you know, six albums later I can actually just sit here and say like, "I love this record, and I'm so proud of it. " - The feeling of self-worth is just such a...it's a strange thing to be able to not feel like you're an egomaniac when you say, "Wow, that was special. We just did something special. That was powerful and not just for us, but hopefully for the people that were sharing it with us. " - You guys have a lot of like wires in here you know, and you know how like when wires get tangled, it's just like a nightmare, and sometimes it can take you so long to untangle them. And I feel like that's kind of like the life of the band. You know, you start out with a straight wire, it's just the people making the music, and that's all you have to worry about. Then all of a sudden it's like...and you have like a label, and then you have a manager, and then you have a booking agent, and then you have a lawyer, and then you have fans, and then you have this, and it's just tangled, tangled, tangle. And then, I think the last two records have been the process of untangling and getting back to this just straight connection, you know. - Just us being able to get together and do it, and keep doing it, and keep trying to honestly make music together will be good. - We're Circa Survive and you're watching Baeble.
Artist Bio
Circa Survive is an American rock band from the Philadelphia suburb of Doylestown, formed in 2004. The band, led by Anthony Green, consists of former members from Saosin, This Day Forward, and Taken.
Circa Survive quickly made a name for themselves in the indie music scene in little over two years with their 2005 debut album, Juturna, and second album, On Letting Go, released in 2007. Both albums were released on Equal Vision Records. Their third album, Blue Sky Noise, was released via Atlantic Records in 2010, to critical acclaim. After parting ways with Atlantic Records, the band's fourth album, Violent Waves, was released independently in 2012. Their fifth album, Descensus, was released by Sumerian Records in 2014.