Capstan: Change In The House Of Flies
Change. It’s inevitable. You can resist it and be left behind at the starting line. Or you can choose to embrace it and keep ahead of the evolutionary curve. It’s something you’ll experience throughout life, whether you like it or not. If change in life is the mid-level mini-game, change in the music industry is the end-level boss. Since time immortal, gatekeepers have kept change at bay. Genres are kept in line under lock and key. Artists who colour outside of their lines are exiled, doomed to spend life as martyrs of the mainstreams. Floridian outliers CAPSTAN is a band behaving badly.
They painted post-hardcore pictures on their 2019 debut Restless Heart, Keep Running. With divorce and depression in their ranks amidst a global pandemic, the quintet has embraced change on its follow-up Separate. Their post-hardcore is now coloured in shades of synth-pop, pop-punk, and shoegaze to name a few. It’s something they’re not afraid of, no matter what the gatekeepers have to say.
“Those genres are like a very small splinter of this giant piece of plywood that we are,” explains bassist and vocalist Andrew ‘Boz’ Bozymowski. “We’re an amalgam of so many different influences, and so many different areas in which we want to infiltrate. We want to be the band that everyone can tour with.”
Their growth comes not only from the change they’re experiencing in their lives, but in the way they want CAPSTAN to blossom moving forward. Taking inspiration from genre-hopping contemporaries PANIC! AT THE DISCO and DANCE GAVIN DANCE, they’re content with putting out music that can pop them on any type of playlist. They even wrote the straight-up pop-punk summer vibes of take my breath away // noose with the intention of reaching a whole new audience. “We knew that type of song can be an extension of who we are and help us gain more ears and help put us in more genre spheres where we’re able to be eligible for these different types of playlists thing, which is something we target and work on so very hard.”
CAPSTAN are manifesting their evolution. They’re creating man-made rivers of change in the studio. Swapping out old-fashioned jam sessions in favour of fully realising their songs on their laptops instead, they’ve made their own mountains to move. “We believe that if you just pick up an instrument and write songs, you’re actually held back by whatever you can do in that moment with your hands, instead of imagining something, programming it and then learning it later and pushing yourself to be a better musician,” admits Boz, beaming at his band’s forward-thinking approach. “We’re a band who do all of our writing on Guitar Pro. We’re able to take a general idea and plot it out, you can change it so effortlessly while never having to pick up an instrument and learn it first.”
It’s these kinds of antics that keep the gatekeepers of genres on their toes. It’s a situation so few others would put themselves into. CAPSTAN is not your typical band though. They thrive on staring a brave new world in the face and taking it on headfirst. They even signalled this shift in sound at the death of their Pelican logo on the artwork of Restless Heart, Keep Running. It’s a symbol that’s not seen anywhere on Separate. It symbolises the progression they’ve been striving to achieve, both as musicians and as human beings. The album’s art highlights a man facing an inanimate object, however it’s up to you whether it’s “in his way or something he’s gravitated to,” a play on the album’s homonymous title.
Separate, without context, can stand for almost anything your mind lets it. In one sense, it represents the divorce guitarist Joe Mabry underwent, an experience his band had no idea was happening as they buried each other in their work. “You could tell there was something very personal about what he was writing. I didn’t know in the moment what was causing that, but once we started listening to the record, it all made sense,” Boz explains, buoyed by the resilience of his bandmate, who spent hours upon hours working on the record, expanding. “This record is Joe’s diary of everything that he was going through, he didn’t want to burden anyone else with it. Separate was his way to get through what he was going through, and now more than ever, I understand the beauty in that.”
Playing a part in putting together the puzzle pieces of an album born from such a deeply personal place has been a humbling experience. For Boz, drummer Scott Fisher, guitarist Harrison Bormann, and vocalist Anthony DeMario; their interpretation of their own album suddenly shifted into something else. “If you listen to these songs, and you understand that Joe went through a major heartbreak, you realise this is just something that he knew he had to do to refine his happiness. I think in that moment this record becomes that much more personal to everybody, including us in the band, and just being able to have any part in it is really amazing.”
In many ways, Joe’s experiences have arrived like little epiphanies. They’ve shaped the way CAPSTAN feel about themselves and their band moving forward. It helped Boz and co. come to terms with what it truly meant to them individually, too. “This record to me is separating from your old self, and your old ways, and embracing a new journey. It’s about going into something that might be very daunting and very hard to decide on but deep down it’s the best choice for you, and the best choice for your group, and it’s the best choice for your life.”
They haven’t embraced change for the sake of change, either. It comes from a selfless place. They believe by opening their hearts in their music, they’re sharing the shades of their emotion with their fans. They aren’t living solely for the rockstar lifestyle, there’s a method to their madness and a purpose to their cause. “We’re so thought out, like the emotion our fans feel in our songs, that came from a real place, I promise you that,” enthuses Boz, asserting CAPSTAN’s authenticity like placing a flag on the moon. “That’s what we want people to understand and feel when they listen to our music is that it’s real, we don’t write just to write, this is our outlet.”
Separate is a diary in so many ways. Whether it’s Joe’s divorce, CAPSTAN’s progression, or your own interpretation, it will go down in history as the moment the Floridians embraced change and evolved.
Separate is out now via Fearless Records.
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