Satyr: Finding Simplicity In The Insanity
Atlantan trio SATYR have garnered a lot of love and attention with their frenzied blend of blistering instrumentation and accessible melodies, combining to provide a unique but explosive cocktail. Bursting onto the scene with debut EP Neutrino the band have been going from strength to strength ever since.
“We started back in 2017 so we’ve been at this for a minute but we’ve always been into prog, math rock, pop-punk and different genres and we wanted to kind of mix everything together, like the odd time signatures, and as we gained new influences things to just got even crazier,” discusses guitarist Michael ‘Soup’ Campbell. It wasn’t until the following full-length Locus that the band really found their stride. “I remember going to see SAVE US FROM THE ARCHON and just getting super inspired. I went right home and started writing like a monster that night! Locus was a direct example of how everything began to mesh together. We found a happy medium between all of our influences.”
“I recall the song Mushroom being written and that was like the real catalyst I think, when things started getting wild,” adds frontman Janald ‘JD’ Long.
Whilst Locus proved to be the launchpad, they are hoping that impending release Totem will assist in this progression. “We’re super stoked on this album,” declares Soup. “It’s a lot more concise, a little less spastic and chaotic than our past work but we’re still very proggy so there’s still a lot of weird shit in there. We took a lot more time putting everything together, it’s a lot more thought out but it’s definitely been the hardest music I’ve ever hard to record, learn and write.”
“Things are a lot more unified and I think they come across better than our last album,” adds drummer Brody Taylor Smith. “As far as the layers go there are a lot of songs with like five or six guitar layers or a tonne of vocal layers and the complexity of everything is kind of off the charts. I feel like it just kind of happened pretty naturally. It’s impossible to avoid getting an idea out of your head thinking ‘right this is gonna end up like this’ but it definitely turned out different to what we anticipated.”
Totem pushes the SATYR sound into new and unexplored territories, building on their previous works and constructing new and enticing styles and structures. “Fitting the vocals alongside the instrumentals was definitely the biggest challenge of the entire album,” explains JD. “I wrote the whole thing and then went back in to add the vocals so to add to something which already exists and you’re already satisfied with can be a challenge but I’m stoked on how it turned out.”
“I start writing things down in notes on my phone then go back to them and start picking apart words and rearranging them to see what comes out. A lot of my ideas tend to be introspective and about specific topics. Sometimes a phrase doesn’t fit as we intended so we’ll play around and try switching it up. Even in the studio, we were tweaking things in the moment,” adds Soup. “At times it can be impossible for the vocals not to like, kind of step on top of certain things but we did a lot of back and forth and I think what we settled on works really well”.
The three-piece have intriguingly stuck to song titles consisting of just one word and Totem looks to be following suit. When quizzed on whether this had an intentional part to play in the process, Soup responds with “I like how poignant and simple one word titles are. I’ve always thought for us that I like the contrast of one word titles and then the music is just super insane and kind of doesn’t match up. It also just looks really clean when you see a CD or vinyl cover. It’s maybe a symmetrical OCD thing!”
Unfortunately in 2020, bassist Calvin Cox departed the band to focus on his studies and pursue a change in career. The band chose to handle bass duties in-house but recruited a new bassist for live shows in fellow Atlantan Ryne Jones. “It just kind of happened,” admits Soup. “We weren’t prioritising searching for a new bassist for a long time. We didn’t want to rush into something that would end up blowing up in our faces. We wanted to take our time finding someone. Then it came to touring and we got the offer to tour with FALL OF TROY and that lit a fire under us to find someone. Ryan was recommended to us and he learned the songs real fast and he’s a super chill dude. He’s been in bands in the scene here for a long time and I think we’d actually played shows together without knowing.”
Totem is out now via Kill Iconic Records.
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