Pattern-Seeking Animals: Exploring Prog and Beyond
When PATTERN-SEEKING ANIMALS got together for the first time, the musicians didn’t really know if what they are getting into will result in a cohesive whole an album represents. But as the time passed and song after song the quartet, comprised of SPOCK’S BEARD trio – singer and guitarist Ted Leonard, bassist Dave Meros, drummer Jimmy Keegan – and keyboardist and primary songwriter John Boegehold, came up with an hour worth of material, resulting in the group’s self-titled debut album, released last year via InsideOut Music.
Boegehold reflects, “we had songs that come from different eras and different things we put together, and I wrote a few new things for it and we produced a debut album.”
Some ten months after the debut, PATTERN-SEEKING ANIMALS are gearing up for the release of Prehensile Tales, a release that capitalises on the debut’s highlights, boasting a more diverse and dynamic approach. “The difference with Prehensile Tales is that I started from zero, with no existing material and wrote anything specific for it to have an overall sound, songs that sound like they’d fit on the whole album,” says Boegehold. “I wanted to kind of expand the sound base that we use with some other instruments, and exploring some different genres and things that you don’t normally hear in prog, but still keeping it interesting. Because the album was coming so quickly we wanted to try to separate it. Because the assumption when you come out with something this quickly – a lot of people think ‘oh they just had a lot of material left from the first album,’ which is not the case at all.”
Prehensile Tales is much more multilayered than the self-titled debut release in a way that employs a wide variety of additional instruments including violin, cello, trumpet, flute, and saxophone. About the reasons behind this approach, John comments, “the first song I wrote for the new album was Lifeboat, which is the longest song, and right from the beginning I thought I’d like to go to a different direction with so many instruments, so instead of using synth or guitar I’ve been thinking ‘well, on this song I might use a trumpet or a violin or a flute.’ So right from the beginning, they were written to have the real instruments within the songs as opposed to getting to the end of it and think, ‘it might be cool to have a real instrument.’ I think it lends to make the material sound slightly different from the previous album.”
About how diverse, complex rhythmic and global musical influences serve the storylines of Prehensile Tales, John laughingly says, “the lyrics were written a year ago, there was anything intentional there. That’s good when people can find things that tie into other portions of life because a lot of time I like to leave things a little more mysterious and I’m trying not to be obvious about things. I like when people find their own meanings in lyrics I write. A lot of times when people hear a song and think, ‘I think it means this,’ I never thought about that but that makes sense.”
Unlike with the previous album, this time the band had more opportunities to gather together and work on the songs. “One thing we got lucky about was that everyone’s schedule lined up for this one. For example, during the first album, Rich Mouser – the engineer who I worked with forever – he went out on tour to run the sound for Neal Morse’s band. So there is two months we couldn’t do anything. And at one point Jimmy was out of the town for some period of time. This album, we just got lucky where people were in and out of town occasionally doing other gigs, but everything lined up so we never had to put a pause on anything. We were able to run through consistently, get everything done, which is really nice. We got lucky there and everyone came up with their parts, it was very fortunate.”
Asked about the most liberating thing about the release of an album and Prehensile Tales, in particular Boegehold admits, “when it’s done, because to the very moment that you mix and master everything you’re thinking about so many things, you are thinking about every little part in your mixing, and you are thinking, ‘oh in this song the high end is too loud, or we need more bass.’ In the minute when it’s mastered and you hit that button to upload it to the record company, all that is gone. So that’s the liberating part. Your mind, all of a sudden, doesn’t have to be there anymore, and all of a sudden you have to think about other things involved, but it’s a definite load off your mind when that happens.”
“When we were getting ready to finish the album and send it to the record company, you have all the normal thoughts, ‘okay now we’re gonna start doing interviews and reviews, and the record company is gonna deal with it.’ Then all of a sudden this pandemic happened and it shifted things up a little bit because all of a sudden everyone is working from home and we started thinking if we are going to be able to get the physical product out there. Will the CD and vinyl plants be opened? And that was a big mystery for few weeks there, but it looks like everything well into place, and there’s hasn’t just been a whole lot of difference in the whole pandemic era than it was last time. Everyone is doing their job and everyone is getting things happening, and it’s all running smoothly. We’ll see if people are still going to be interested in buying a new product, I’m just not sure about that. But I would imagine people are hungry for new material. Who knows? It’s kind of a mystery there actually.”
Were there any second thoughts whether from the label or the band about the release of the new album at this point in time?
John: No, not at all. In fact, when I started talking to the label halfway through the recording toward the middle of last year I kept telling, ‘look, we are gonna have this thing ready to send you by February.’ I’m not sure if they believed me or not, but when I got to the point where it was gonna actually happen and I liked the product, they said ‘great, we have a slot open in May. Let’s go that way.’ InsideOut – yes, they release 15 albums a month and they have all these people working on different things—they gear up for different bands and they like to concentrate on one act at the time, which is great. We were lucky in that they are still working really hard to get everything out there, and there was never a word spoken about delaying it. And again, the only question was whether or not physically it’s gonna be able to happen. And the band, we were actually thinking ‘if everyone is locked at home, why don’t we just release earlier? Why wait until May?’ [laughs] But I understand why not because all the mechanics, setting up interviews and reviews, and manufacturing the CDs and vinyl – it can’t work like that.
A lot of Pattern-Seeking Animals music has very complex arrangements. Does infusing songs with that level of embellishment come naturally to you?
John: Well, that depends on the music, but I like the type of music where you can hear it 20 times and all of a sudden the 21st time you realise, “I never heard that guitar part there” or “I’ve never noticed there was mellotron there.” I like that kind of depth with the subtle stuff happening. You have to listen for it, it doesn’t present itself right away. I’m really into that type of things and that’s just the way I write luckily. I just like the textures and the layers, all that kind of stuff. And I like the seamless transitions from one part of the song to the next where you’re going along in a song and all of a sudden you realise you are in an entirely different section and the different time signature and tempo. I just love writing stuff like that. I love a simple song as much as anybody, but especially in prog, it allows you to go a little deeper than you might normally if you’re writing a pop song or something like that.
Would you say that considering the experience you all have amassed over the years, there are still things that you can learn during songwriting and recording phases for an album?
John: Absolutely. A lot of is because I love listening to current music. Pop, rock, prog, jazz, whatever. I keep up with a lot of stuff. Especially in the pop field, even stuff like K-Pop and J-Pop and all that stuff, because those people – whether you like the music or not – they have to keep up on all the latest production techniques, and synthesizer sounds and approaches, whatever. They have to keep it because everything in the pop world becomes stale within a few months. I think that’s what prog used to be many years ago. You would always listen to a GENESIS album and thinking, ‘what keyboards Tony Banks is going to play this time?’ And so what happens as I’m listening to all this new stuff, if I hear something in some pop song which has a really cool production technique or the way they structure a song or arrange that thing, I’ll go in that direction any time. In fact, in one of the songs, Why Don’t We Run, there is a treatment I used on the guitar from something I heard in a Selena Gomez single. I thought that’s really cool how they did the acoustic guitar there, I’m gonna try that. I think it helps you when you listen to a lot of current stuff, again, you don’t have to like the music, but just from the technical standpoint you listen to it and go, ‘how do I do that?’ And it keeps things fresh, and you try new things. If you keep relying on the same sound, the same production ideas you have from 30 years ago – it’s harder and harder to write because everything just starts sounding the same. To me, anyway.
Do you tend to follow-up any pre-defined patterns when composing a piece?
John: The only thing I do is, for example, when you write like the first song for an album, like I wrote Lifeboat, which is the longest one on this album, the only thing I follow is, ‘okay I’m gonna write another song now, and I don’t want it to sound like Lifeboat.’ I’m gonna write something different but still sounds like it’s on the same album. When you start off there are no rules. And then the only rule after that becomes writing something that sounds like it would be on the same album, in the same vibe, and not sound like the other song or not sound too similar so everything just starts to sound the same.
You were supposed to play at this year’s RoSfest followed by a tour, but the festival has been cancelled and it’s a huge question if there will be any tours and shows this year. How will this affect your promotion of the new album? Have you talked about any alternative plans on keeping the momentum after the album is launched in May?
John: As you said, everything is just on hold. It’s been postponed, and really no-one knows when anything is coming back. We have already started working on a live set which obviously got put on hold when everything was postponed. Promotion, it is different – we cannot go live and promote it. One thing we’ll do is we shot, we all did our home parts for videos for a couple of songs that will be released. So the idea when you can’t tour is to keep on putting out content; little video things here and there, interviews, or whatever. Just to keep the momentum going. Because you are right, without promotion you cannot really go out and play a tour in Europe – it’s impossible. And no-one knows what’s gonna happen so you can’t even plan for it. It’s uncharted territory.
Prehensile Tales is out now via InsideOut Music.
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