A Conversation with Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian – HuffPost 3.14.14
Mike Ragogna: Capital Cities is back with the single “One Minute More,” from the deluxe version of In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery. Its deluxe tracklist has a lot more material on it, what made you go back and add to the album?
Sebu Simonian: Well, “One Minute More” is a song that we had written a while back, it was going to end up on the album as well, it was one of the contenders, but we hadn’t really completed it exactly to our standards, I guess, so we put out the album. As time passed we kept revisiting the song and we felt like it was a strong song and this felt like a good opportunity to finish it up and include it on a deluxe version of the album alongside some other cool tracks and remixes as well.
MR: What do you feel about the impact of Capital Cities? “Safe And Sound” was huge, but how do you look at the growth Capital Cities’s popularity in the United States so far?
SS: Well, I think from day one we’ve seen steady growth, of not just the single, but the album and the band itself in terms of reach and appeal, if you will. It started very gradually, but it started globally. It started outside of the states, in the blogosphere, and we just kept watching the popularity of particularly “Safe And Sound” but also the band has grown very organically all over the world. We also saw that there is an appeal to all different age groups, not just the twenty-somethings or the forty-somethings. We have seven year-olds that are die-hard fans, my grandparents are diehard fans as well. It’s just been kind of thrilling to watch it grow steadily and organically, not necessarily overnight, but gradually. I feel like it’s nonstop encouragement for us to just keep going and push the rest of the songs on the album as well.
MR: Why do you think “Safe And Sound” resonated in the US?
SS: I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest with you. We were just doing what we do, which is make music and put it out there. We have been very proactive about connecting with our fans and whoever writes about us, we’ve always been in touch with all of the blogs and magazines and radio stations that have supported us. I think that continual engagement with our fans and our supporters has probably helped us keep the life of the song going.
MR: The album has other highlights such as “Kangaroo Court” and “I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo” though “Safe And Sound” was the killer track. Was there anything about that song’s creative process that was different than the other songs?
SS: Not really. We just kind of throw out ideas and whatever sticks, we develop. If I like a melodic idea that Ryan [Merchant] has come up with I’ll take it and maybe apply some different chords to it and change the melody up a little bit, so it’s very much a fifty-fifty collaboration where we just riff off of each other’s ideas and develop a song in that way. Every song has pretty much experienced the same kind of thing. Some songs are written practically overnight, some take years of going back and forth and fine tuning. We don’t really have a set rule.
MR: Did any song on this album take a particularly long time?
SS: “Safe And Sound.”
MR: When you were creating the songs, was any one particularly more challenging than the others?
SS: Absolutely. I think maybe half the songs on the album took many months of just going back and forth, trial and error. We like to test out the songs live before we commit to it on the record, so we would play it and see how the crowds were responding to different parts of the song and then we’d go back and change them up if we felt like there were weak parts and we would highlight the stronger parts.
MR: How did you guys got together?
SS: I put out an ad on Craigslist as a music producer and Ryan was looking for one, so he responded by checking out my website. I guess he thought I had something to offer, so he called me up. He was actually the only person to call me from that ad, but it worked out.
MR: What was the first meeting like?
SS: First he sent me some music over the internet, and I liked what I heard, so I invited him over to my studio. He came over and we listened to some more music and kind of had a discussion about what our ambitions were and we felt like there was musical chemistry there so we started working on a bunch of different things including his project, and then I invited him to help me out with my solo project and we also started writing music for commercials together as a day job, and all that collaboration naturally lead to the forming of Capital Cities.
MR: Are you guys pals? Do you hang out?
SS: Absolutely! We tour all the time, so we don’t really get to hang out outside of the band situation, but we’re on the road experiencing the world together.
MR: When you play live, you have a band that accompanies you.
SS: They’re all over the record, our drummer and trumpet player and bass player and we also have a guitar player named Nick Merwin, and they’re recorded on the album.
MR: But Capital Cities is really Ryan and Sebu, that’s the heart of it.
SS: In terms of the songwriting and production, yes.
MR: Where do you see Capital Cities in a couple of years?
SS: Well, we’ll definitely be recording a second album, so two years from now there’ll probably be a second album out. There’ll be a lot more music videos; we’re definitely enjoying the process of making music videos right now, we’re working on one for “One Minute More,” we’re almost done working on one for “I Sold My Bed.” There’s going to be a lot more touring, and I think possibly more songwriting for other artists and collaborations with other artists.
MR: Nice. Have you guys had a lot of remix requests?
SS: To remix our stuff or have us remix other people?
MR: Both.
SS: Yeah, absolutely, we get requests all the time.
MR: You talked about music videos before, “Kangaroo Court” is pretty wild, who came up with the plot for that one?
SS: That was basically a collaboration between myself and Ryan and a director, Carlos Lopez Estrada. We came up with the script in a brainstorming session, and that was myself and Ryan’s co-directing debut. The vision was what you saw in the video, it was truly an amazing experience to be able to realize the vision in your head onscreen so exactly. It was really wonderful to experience that.
MR: Has anybody ever tried to emulate all of the dance routines in the “Safe And Sound” music video?
SS: Uh-huh. That song is all about different cultures getting together and collaborating in a positive way, so I’m glad people associate all kinds of dancing with that one song.
MR: What is your advice for new artists?
SS: Be very internet savvy and spread your music out as much as you can as free as you can. I think exposing the music is more important than making money off of downloads because once you get the exposure and the recognition, people will buy your music.
MR: Right. You guys are going to be experiencing a lot of Katy Perry in the near future, huh?
SS: This is correct. We’re going on tour with her in the summer.
MR: Nice. Are there going to be any surprises?
SS: Yeah, we’re going to have to up the production value in order to compete with a Katy Perry concert. We’re going to absolutely bring it and give it our best.
MR: That’s right, and by that time “One Minute More” will be a number one record and maybe the headlining will flip.
SS: [laughs] We’ll see. I highly doubt it though.
Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne