Pizza Academy - Sound In The Signals Interview
I recently had the opportunity to interview Pizza Academy. We discussed their new split EP ‘Greetings From Twin Pine’, their writing and recording process, collaborating with Narrator and We’re Trying Records, what to expect from their upcoming full length, and more. Check it out below.
First, thanks for the interview.
Thank you for having us! :)
You recently released your new split ‘Greetings From Twin Pine’ with Narrator. Can you tell me about writing and recording these new songs?
Sure! We wrote these songs about a year ago. We like to go back and forth with writing folky acoustic music and harder punk rock stuff. Our first release, "Calzone Community College" was acoustic. Then, "Sorry, We Don't Do Delivery" was punk. With this release we wanted to return to writing folk acoustic material, but it's easy to tell from our half of the split that we couldn't fully part from the harder stuff, especially with the songs' endings. I suppose it ended up being a blend of the kinds of music we like to make. We actually had a lot of fun recording this time around, and everything, except for the mastering, was done by us. We were able to utilize the recording studio at our college for the guitars and drums, but time was limited so we ended up recording everything else in Riley's basement over the summer. Look out for the day we get a fully studio recorded release!
One thing I noticed immediately is the sonic evolution and refinement of your sound on these new songs. Did you try anything different in your writing process or were you influenced by any new things?
One of the biggest influences on the songwriting this time around was our approach to the lyrics. In the past, lyrics just kinda came together progressively. Lines would get added that weren't really related to one another, more so each line was just an emotional statement. This time around we wanted each song to be cohesive lyrically, which made for a much more enjoyable writing experience. If we were stuck it was easier to have an overall idea of where the song should go. The final product of this was three songs that are basically self contained stories. One specific band we took inspiration from was The Decemberists. I've been really into them lately and the storytelling within their songs has really changed the way I approach songwriting.
Sonically we put a bit more thought into what we were doing than our previous acoustic release, and we may have gone a bit banjo crazy to say the least. I've always been a fan of blending emo and folk music with synths and digital effects, so it was incredibly fun to mess around with these songs. One of the biggest things we "tried differently" this time was not sitting on these songs for years on end. With previous releases the projects just sort of slipped out of our minds and before you knew it we would be releasing songs that were almost 4 years old to us. This release had the quickest conception-to-release timeline, and it feels so much better to release songs I haven't outgrown.
I really like the song “Make It So”. At what point in the process was that song specifically written?
Make It So was the first song written out of the three. My grandfather was a huge fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as am I. Early last year he passed away and it hit me incredibly hard, and one way I dealt with the grief was writing this sort of conceptual song that takes place in this universe we both adored. This was just a bit after the release of "Sorry We Don't Do Delivery", and it was the first acoustic song I had written in a while so it ended up leading us down the path to making more acoustic songs for this release.
How did it work out to create the split with Narrator?
We had sent a few messages and made a few posts that we were looking for bands to release a split with, then completely coincidentally Narrator messaged us on Instagram asking if we would like to do a split with them! We listened to their stuff and really really loved it so we said we were totally down. Their side of the split is so so good and we're so lucky they reached out at the perfect time.
It came out on We’re Trying Records. How did you end up working with them?
We're Trying reached out to us after the release of "Sorry, We Don't Do Delivery", saying they'd be interested in being involved in our future releases. When the time came to get the split going I just shot them a message back and we're so happy they were down to have us release with them.
Is there any chance that we’ll see a physical release for the split including CDs, cassettes, or vinyl?
Currently, we have no idea. We would absolutely love to get some CDs and cassettes out there, as we didn't do any physical releases for our previous EP.
What’s next for the band? Are you working on new music or projects? If so, what can you tell us so far?
We've been working on our first full length album alongside these EPs for a bit now. It's 15 songs long so it's definitely a bigger undertaking than our previous releases. With our approach to songwriting taking on a more storytelling format, our approach to releases as a whole is doing just the same. As a basic pitch for the album we'll say this, it's about a man making a machine that makes him live forever. We've gotten all the instrumentals written and are working on the lyrics now. We would like to have it out sometime in the next two years, but until then we've got a few singles / smaller releases ready to pave the way.
Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Do you have anything else that you would like to add?
Thank you again for having us!! Always a pleasure. Go check out Narrator's half of the split, it's amazing. We can't wait for everything to come.
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