In late March, Kali Masi released their second full-length, titled [laughs]. The album represents a major step forward for the band and showcases the significant growth they’ve experienced since the release of their last record. We recently caught up with singer/guitarist Sam Porter and bassist Anthony Elliott and discussed how the album was written and recorded. (The band’s lineup is fortified by guitarist Wes Moore and drummer John Garrison). We also talked about what inspired some of the lyrics, the record’s overall message, their plans for the rest of the year and more.
Bill – It’s apparent after listening to only a couple songs on your new album that you guys have grown and matured considerably since your last record. What are some of the things that transpired during the last three and a half years that helped to shape the creation of [laughs]?
Sam – Aside from just the passing of three years and all the stuff that comes with living in this country during that time, I think we kind of got a lot closer as a band. Anthony joined the band pretty much right after Wind Instrument came out and we just toured a lot. Something I really like about the new record is how much everybody really has a voice on it, as far as their instrument and their playing on the record. I don’t know. It’s tough to kind of quantify exactly what went into the maturing of the sound. We played with so many bands over the last three years that I think we got a really good feel for what we liked about what our peers were doing and what we wanted to do differently. I think there’s a lot of stagnancy. No matter who you are or what you’re trying to do, if you’re just touring and playing in a specific scene, you kind of end up playing with a lot of the same bands all the time. And I think there’s a little bit of a restlessness in like trying to be the band that we would want to listen to. I think we were just trying to push ourselves to make something that we were really excited about.
Anthony – I don’t know if I have anything to add to that, other than there are obviously some personal sort of trials and tribulations that contributed to the lyrical aspects of the record. I guess what needs to be said about that is already pretty apparent on the record. We grew very close in the last few years and I think that had a lot to do with everything coming together the way that it did. And it didn’t hurt that we had the entire quarantine to mix it.
Sam – Yeah. I felt like my answer was kind of vague and roundabout. As far as the content of the record, like Anthony was saying, there was a lot of personal stuff that happened with our band that affected us all. It allowed an avenue for us to be really frank and honest with each other, and create an environment where it was really easy to just be open with expressing ourselves in the music. There was not a ton of apprehension about being honest with the rest of the band, because I think we were really on the same page with just how we were feeling about stuff.
Bill – It’s interesting to hear you guys say that, because when I think about the record now, there’s a definite sense of directness to it.
Anthony – Yeah, that’s cool to hear. I haven’t thought about that at all. Sam wrote 99% of the lyrics on this record, but usually when I’m thinking about lyrics, I’m thinking about ways to code and be vague and stuff like that. I didn’t feel like there was a lot of that on this record. We were very open about what everything was about, which was really cool.
Bill – You guys once again recorded with Jay Maas. What was different about working with him this time around?
Anthony – I actually didn’t play on the first record, so everything was new to me. For me, it was just a completely new experience with working beginning to end and having someone else produce an entire record. Other than the pre-production stuff, when it came to the actual production time, just having someone else take the reins on everything was really cool. Jay is super-professional and just an awesome dude.
Sam – We were in Massachusetts for two weeks straight and we didn’t have any jobs to go to or anything like that. All four of us were there all the time. So, it wasn’t like, “My bass parts are done. I’m going to go to the water park.” Everybody was there the whole time, whether their job was done or not, so that created a very democratic and wholistic way of recording. Like Anthony said, Jay is super-professional, but he’s also really comfortable to be around. We drove straight from Chicago and we got there pretty late at night, and I think we were kind of planning on just settling in. We were staying at his house, which also has his studio in it. The first night we were there, we figured out what we were going to eat and then Jay was like, “Cool, do you guys want to go start recording scratch tracks?” It was just very comfortable and casual, but it wasn’t like we were only recording from 9:00 to 5:00. It was like, “Whenever you guys want to do it. We can get going now or we can do it later. Do we want to do drums first?” So, it was really relaxed and really cool.
We recorded Wind Instrument with him in Chicago at Atlas Studios when it was around. I literally met Jay at the door of Atlas. I had my Fender Twin with me and I met the dude right there. We were still getting to know each other while we were recording that album. Going into this record, I think there was a mutual excitement. He was stoked to work with us and we were excited to work with him. There was the right amount of comfortability and nervous energy to just make it a really exciting kind of experience.
Bill – That’s awesome. Do you feel like that experience of being away from Chicago and the four of you being present for the entire recording process, is that something you can hear when you listen to the record?
Sam – I don’t know. I mean, I hear that. I remember feeling when we were on our last day or two of doing the record, just a very “us against the world” kind of feeling. I remember I couldn’t sleep our last night there and I was just walking around with this cool feeling of “We have this secret right now and nobody else knows about it.” I don’t know. I just have that memory of all the lights being off in the house and I was like, “We just did this thing and I think it’s so cool. Right now, it’s just ours and it won’t be like that forever.” It’s just a cool memory.
Bill – What are some of your favorite aspects of how the recording turned out?
Anthony – I think that there’s a good amount of spontaneity on it, considering how much kind of went into planning and how ready to go we were when we got there. It doesn’t sound rehearsed to death. To me it’s really well produced, but we didn’t fine-tune every single thing. We didn’t do too many takes of vocals and stuff like that. We wanted there to be that kind of energy and I think that comes through. I think it’s exciting to listen to. It doesn’t sound over-cooked or anything.
Sam – Interestingly enough, I think the parts that we spent the most time on were the parts that we were trying to make sound more fucked up. The parts that we were like, “Oh, let’s make it sound like someone messed up at this part.” Those were the ones that we did over and over again. As far as my favorite moments on the record, I like “Recurring (I).” That’s a song that we’ve kind of had in our pocket for years. We always planned on doing what we did with it, but it just wasn’t fully done. That’s one that has a lot of memories attached for me, because the lyrics were all written while we were there. The vocal performance was completely new and it was done on the last day. My voice was pretty much done at that point and we had this one kind of moment to do that song. If my voice would’ve gone out on that take that would’ve been it. The track wouldn’t have been on the record, but it was just kind like a Hail Mary of a vocal performance and it’s one of the more interesting songs on the record for sure. I really love the horn part that Wes does on the outro. For years it was a guitar part that we had been noodling with, but he just busted out his trumpet and was like “What if I tried it on this?” He figured it out and I think it ended up adding a really cool element to the song. That’s something that stands out to me.
Bill – For sure. The song “Trophy Deer” is obviously very catchy from the onset, but it’s also one that’s seemingly rather personal from a lyrical standpoint. What inspired the words to this song?
Sam – I have a list in my phone of song titles that I would like to write lyrics for and attach them to. “Trophy Deer” was one of them, for the same reason that it’s in the song, kind of the symbolism of the souveniur aspect of a living thing. I thought that was kind of interesting and I wanted to write about that. It was also one of the last songs that we wrote before we left to go record. I finished it very quickly and wrote it very quickly. That’s probably why it’s the most straightforward song on the record. I was kind of thinking of Bruce Springsteen a little bit. It doesn’t sound like Bruce Springsteen, but he writes these very direct, autobiographical songs that start in the hometown and then kind of build on it. I wanted to write about my exact childhood experience of moving from a lower middleclass town to a wealthy town. It’s like that cinematic montage of the childhood part in a movie. I was trying to be really blunt and straightforward and not like myself. Usually, I’m a lot more wordy and metaphorical.
Bill – That’s really cool. As much as I love Bruce Springsteen, I didn’t get that vibe from the song, but when you explain it that way…
Sam – Yeah, not in like how it sounds, but more like, “Here’s a story that everyone can understand.”
Anthony – Someone early on described it as a “heartland rocker” of a song. That’s kind of interesting. I didn’t know that was a particular influence. I never thought of the song as being in that vein until someone pointed it out. I always thought of the riff more as a Dinosaur Jr. kind of thing, even though the song doesn’t sound anything like that.
Bill – “Freer” is one of my favorite songs on the record. I especially like how it starts off somewhat relaxed and just continues to add layers and build in intensity. How exactly did this song come together?
Sam – Me and Anthony had a few songs that we kept messing around with that were all in the same key. That was one of them. It was just the riff and the bridge, that was the only part that we had. I wanted to do something with it and then I just couldn’t sleep one night. I went in the other room and was quietly messing around and that song kind of fell out. I just sat down and by the time I stood up the song was written. It was really important to us to get the feel right of how we wanted to introduce the full band part of it. That took a lot of rehearsal. I think it’s got that thing where sometimes a song will feel nostalgic even if it isn’t. I think that kind of exists in that song for me, just that kind of spirit. We actually recorded it twice. We recorded it once to a click track and it just sounded so sterile and didn’t have the right vibe. Then we tried again and did a live take. So, the guitar and vocals for the whole first half of that song are live, like together in the same room, which is unfortunate that that’s like a flex, (laughs). It’s like, “Hey, I can play guitar and sing at the same time,” but it’s just not how we recorded the rest of the record. We weren’t sure how it was going to work out, but it ended up being really cool. We just took the first half and put it right into the full band part and it just sounded awesome.
Bill – I didn’t think that it was recorded live when I listened to it, but when you say that it makes perfect sense.
Anthony – There’s really only one way to get that vibe. Like I said, there was so much planning and putting pieces together for the record, so having those moments like that where anything could happen or anything could be fucked up, it just adds a lot. With that song in particular, it was definitely a less is more kind of thing. We talked a lot about adding a drum beat over the beginning and stuff like that, but it just came down to like, “No. It needs to be what it is.”
Bill – Tell me about the video for “Guilt Like a Gun” and where its unique concept came from.
Sam – One of the first times that we met up after quarantine we started talking about what we could do for videos, since we obviously had some time to start working on videos. We literally sat in a circle and kind of exchanged ideas. I had this idea of like, “Wouldn’t it be audacious for band of our size to try and do an OK Go kind of thing?” I had this concept of a FaceTime between the band members, but we’re all in the same room. We basically split into two teams and Anthony and John worked on the “Trophy Deer” video. While that was going on, Wes and I planned out and choreographed the “Guilt Like a Gun” video. We had this giant piece of paper that we basically used like a blueprint and drew football plays of the ways that we had to move around on the backdrops to make it look seamless. We shot it all in one take at the same time. We shot that portion down in St. Louis in a giant room that our friend uses as a photo studio. We used four cameras and then we edited them together to be four separate videos. Before we started filming, we had to count off and hit play on all of our phones at the same time. If we started at different times, we had to start over. We aren’t good enough at making videos to know how to do that the easy way, so we just did it the hard way. That’s kind of the story behind that video.
Bill – Can you tell me about the album’s central theme? I read that it has to do with the idea that one’s true self is something that comes from within and not so much something that can be affected by others.
Sam – Well, I think a lot of the record deals with outgrowing friendships and the relationships that we very much define ourselves by. When those things go away or you outgrow those and need to leave them, there’s a struggle for identity. A lot of the record is really just about trying to find inner peace and inner freedom. And exploring that from more than one perspective, not just you looking out at the world, but also kind of looking back at yourself. And how can we be better? How can our relationships improve by finding that peace? There’s this lyric from a Perfect Pussy song that I really like where she goes “Nothing that comes and goes is you.” I really resonate with that. And not to say that you shouldn’t change, but there’s like a constant energy I think inside of everybody that is true and that is static. And the things that are just liquid are maybe not as important to your identity as the things that stay.
Anthony – I think as far as that theme goes, we were obviously all in different places mentally when the record was being written. I think there’s different stuff that I take away from the lyrics and what I think of them as being about. It’s interesting to hear that perspective on it or hear it summed up in that way. I don’t know if I have anything to really add to that. I think just an important thing that we talked a lot about as far as cohesion on the record goes is we weren’t going to let any of the sort of heavier themes or moments that were rooted in negative energy, we weren’t going to dwell on that energy. And that it was going to try and come from just a generally positive place. I don’t know if I like the word “positive,” like positive vs. negative, but we were kind of coming from a place of being better and not just dwelling on being fucking sad or shitty or whatever.
Sam – Yeah. I love sad bands just as much as the next person, but we really made a point to look at the problems that we were exploring objectively and like Anthony said, not dwell and not just write down the bad parts, but also approach an exit plan. And again, another thing that Anthony and I discuss all the time in terms of song meanings, like that’s just what it means to me. That’s not to say like, “Hey, here’s what the song is about.” I don’t want to take that away from anybody. I also think that people are smart enough to not have their impression of the song be tainted by me saying something like, “Well, it’s about this teacher that I had.” Like the songs that we wrote on Wind Instrument, when I listen to them now, they mean something a little bit different to me than they did then. So even my opinion doesn’t really matter. I can tell you what I’m going for with it or where it came from, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what it’s going to mean to me forever.
Bill – That’s a good point. The meaning of songs definitely changes over time. I just wanted to ask about the record’s title, [laughs]. Is there a story or a particular incident that inspired it?
Sam – John Garrison actually came up with it. We were thinking about band names a long time ago and we had a list going. The reason why we thought it was interesting was with closed captioning in television and movies, when something’s in brackets it’s like a sound that you’re hearing offscreen or you can’t see the thing that’s making the noise. For me, I’m like “How do you describe laughter?” That’s something that’s so personal and so human, so to just put the word “laughs” in brackets is so vague for such a specific thing. Everybody’s laugh is kind of like a little bit of a fingerprint. There’s this kind of level of humor that I think it adds to things, especially because we’re exploring a little bit of darker themes on the record. We thought it was a cool juxtaposition to reference someone’s happiness offscreen, but you’re not sure who it is and maybe it’s you. Who knows?
Bill – I know there are obviously still a lot of uncertainties regarding live music happening in 2021. With that said, what do you guys have planned to promote [laughs] this year?
Anthony – I was planning on getting really good at TikTok. No. We’re definitely hoping to play Fest in Gainesville in October and we’re gonna go play some shows in Europe at the end of the year if everything goes according to plan. Other than that, it’s pretty open-ended. It’s just hard to really make any certain plans and different people have different approaches, but I don’t want to plan all this stuff and then have to reschedule. That’s just not really something that we have the energy to do, like keep booking shows and then rescheduling and cancelling them. I think we’re just waiting till things are a little more certain before we put a lot of energy into shows. We’re just doing recorded livestream sets and stuff like that in the meantime.
Bill – I think that makes a lot of sense. Since you’re presently unable to tour or play shows, has this situation led to you guys already writing any new material?
Anthony – Not yet.
Sam – Hopefully soon. It’s weird because we obviously haven’t played any shows recently, so we don’t really know what songs people like off the record. We don’t know how anybody is going to respond to it, which is fine. We don’t need to know in order to write more music, but I kinda want to hit that milestone. I don’t know. There’s no point in waiting to write new music. I guess it just feels a little weird to do it before we give this record the attention it deserves. In the meantime, we’re just trying to get it in front of everybody that will listen to it. And every day sending it to more people and asking more people about it. Just basically saying “yes” to everything that people are asking us to do, because we have a lot downtime right now. Like Anthony said, it’s very open-ended. We’re not sure yet.
Bill – I completely understand that you’d want to give this record the appropriate amount of time before you move on to something new.
Anthony – I think we’re always coming up with little things like riffs and ideas. Sam’s always writing notes down. There are things that exist now that are like the very earliest versions of some things that will end up kind of becoming the next record, but nothing that we’ve put in front of each other. Nothing’s in stone yet. It’s all floating around. It took us fuckin’ forever to make this one and we’re not in any rush to blast anything else out.
