By Keith Walsh The guitar sounds on the new album Living Waters by E are unique in rock music. That’s due not only to phrasings and voicings, but also in the customized signal paths of guitarists/vocalists Jason Sydney Sanford and Thalia Zedek. In part two of my interview with Sanford, Zedek, and drummer/vocalist Ernie Kim, I find out more about the trio’s history, their upcoming European tour, and how they got their unique name. (Part one of our interview is here and my review of E’s new album “Living Waters” is at punkrockbeat.com )
Popular Culture Beat: That’s a good opportunity to ask. I want to ask about Thalia’s bass guitar that has an extra pick up and you’re using the octave pedal. How did you modify this guitar? What was it originally?
Thalia Zedek: I think it’s called a submarine pick up. It’s actually Ernie’s, it’s like a little pickup. It’s only big enough for two strings and I stuck it under and you can tape it down just underneath the two lowest strings on my guitar and it has a separate output. And so that output I’m running into an octave pedal and through a bass amp, and it’s got a really deep booming sound. Also a little bit of distortion.
Popular Culture Beat: Who’s composing most of the chordal movement?
Jason Sydney Sanford: Oh, that’s that’s just Thalia and I working together intuitively.
Popular Culture Beat: They come out of jams.
Jason Sydney Sanford: Yeah.
Popular Culture Beat: I noticed you guys favor less movement. If you have too much chordal movement, movement of chords, you get kind of a pop sound, and you guys are avoiding that. It’s effective for the dark tone. So is that more intuitive, or instinctive, or you guys say ‘no don’t go to another chord change’ — has that ever happened or what’s going on?
Thalia Zedek: When we first started out, the reason we got our name is because all our songs were in E. Not only were they in the key of E for many of the songs– it was also the only chord in the entire song. So I think when we first started out, which at this point was like 10 years ago, we did have songs that were just one chord, and then — how to make that interesting because you know, you can do a lot within just a certain key — you don’t need to change all the time. So we did kind of explore on that. I think now we’ve branched out to A, so now we’ve kind of branched out a little bit to a few more chords, but we’re still pretty minimal about it.
Popular Culture Beat: Yeah. Yeah. I think it almost pushes you folks into like goth territory at times with urgency of the vocals and also the darkness. Would you agree or disagree?
Jason Sydney Sanford: I can see that.
Thalia Zedek: The goth thing…I can see that. I think there’s a darkness there.
Popular Culture Beat: The impression I get from the album is that the world’s a pretty dangerous place. What are some of your experiences for any of you that informed that inform that approach?
Jason Sydney Sanford: Starting with just the first song “(Fully) Remote,” I found the whole pandemic situation to be really challenging psychologically for me. I teach part time at the college level and so I immediately had to start teaching it through the Zoom format. And that was super hard for me and so I found, following that I just have a lot of psychological struggles.
Popular Culture Beat: What are you teaching?
Jason Sydney Sanford: Some media production classes and online video stuff. It’s partially related to what I do musically, I think yeah and I teach a I teach a class for people who are interested in sound in like basic hands on electronics and soldering so that was really hard to teach remotely. I had build kits for people to take home and do tutorial videos so they could follow along at home.
Popular Culture Beat: It’s harder to connect. That’s a good point. So yeah, now that you all are going out on tour to Europe, how do you connect? So, how do you connect when you’re there? What do you do with the fans and people? On stage more?
Thalia Zedek: Jason and I have been touring over there for a while. So we have been in different projects and we have we have some friends over there, and people we’ve worked with, and then there’s also a lot of people, like the record label we’re on, Silver Rocket, which is based in Prague. That’s a group of people I met through E and we met them initially. Our first two records were released on Thrill Jockey and we met Silver Rocket. They were just doing our bookings in the Czech Republic mainly and also other places in Central Europe and they were just such great people, a really interesting group of group of people – they’re like a collective based in Prague, and they do booking and they have a record label and stuff. So it feels really good to have connected with them, and being on a European label like, we feel a little bit more connected to you to Europe.
“When we first started out, the reason we got our name is because all our songs were in E. Not only were they in the key of E for many of the songs– it was also the only chord in the entire song.”
Thalia Zedek of E
Popular Culture Beat: The album was mastered in Europe. I thought that was an interesting choice in Prague, but you already had a connection.
Thalia Zedek: And mixed in Prague. The first record that we did for Silver Rocket, was a record called Complications. That was our first time working with them and they’re like, hey, there’s this guy and in Prague who’s a friend of ours who’s like really great at mastering and we should have a master of the record. ( That’s Ondřej Ježek — KW ). So we said ‘sure’ and then and he did a great job and was really nice to work with. And then the next record the person that we were going to use to mix was completely booked up or had a baby or couldn’t do it or something like that So they’re like, ‘Oh Ondřej can also mix.’ And so he did a great job of mixing and mastering, and so we just went with him again. And yeah, so I think that was a definitely a connection through being on Silver Rocket the connection with Ondřej.”
Popular Culture Beat: Yeah, you got a sound you couldn’t get anywhere else. It’s different. There’s a lot of analog feel to it.
Thalia Zedek: They call him the Steve Albini of the Czech Republic.
Popular Culture Beat: That’s a good name to be called. What amp are you using? I’ve been wanting to ask you.
Thalia Zedek: I am using a 70s Fender Twin Reverb.
Popular Culture Beat: Ah, a reliable one. Okay cool. That’s pretty easy to get on tour. Jason was telling me how easy the Jazz Chorus is to get when you’re on the road, if something happens. How long have you and Jason playing together?
Jason Sydney Sanford: Ten years, right?
Thalia Zedek: Yeah about 11 years over just ten years. Yeah,
Popular Culture Beat: And then Ernie came, along and he’s a newcomer. Have you toured Europe yet?
Ernie Kim: Yeah, I signed on in 2022. I guess 2022 for the tour and Kevin had to step away.
Thalia Zedek: Ernie’s our third drummer.
Popular Culture Beat: They keep bursting into flames. I know that one.
Thalia Zedek: Like a Spinal Tap type thing.
Popular Culture Beat: That’s what happened. Okay. So are you all cautious in Europe or do you pretty much like to taste the world when you’re there? I mean, I’m sixty years old, so I’m pretty cautious when I go somewhere.
Thalia Zedek: I like to taste the world, personally. I like trying all kinds of food and the local drink and stuff. You know, I’m about your age too. So I don’t really go out and rage at all night discos after the shows anymore. I’m kind of like more concerned putting on a good show and remaining healthy and stuff, but I think we all we all love touring and we really enjoy ourselves on tour.
Popular Culture Beat: You have a great roster starting in June on there’s all the clubs, Belgium, Spain, Germany, all these places in Europe. Silver Rocket is signing you up over there.
Thalia Zedek: Actually, no, they’re not booking us. They booked us in the Czech Republic. We actually have a European booking agent Corrado Massari who has a agency called El Borracho.
Popular Culture Beat: ‘The drunk one.’
Popular Culture Beat: I can’t find ‘Living Waters’– is it on all the streamers? Maybe it’s because it’s hard to find because the name, E.
Thalia Zedek: It’s not on Spotify. Silver Rocket, they’re really punk rock and super DIY ethos and they don’t do any digital stuff at all. All they do is put out vinyl. So all the digital stuff is us, and I guess we probably were very against Spotify because we feel like they exploit musicians. But we so we just have it up on Bandcamp now, but I wouldn’t be opposed to getting it up on some other non-exploitive streaming services.
Popular Culture Beat: Bandcamp I love, I always prefer to embed them first because they are more fair and it’s also more aesthetic than the Spotify player, and anybody can hear it. What are you working on now? Are there new tunes, or kind of woodshedding if you have time?
Jason Sydney Sanford: Well, we’re just getting ready for the tour right now. I’m trying to remember the old stuff.
Popular Culture Beat: Yeah, because you put some of them set right?
Jason Sydney Sanford: I know the new record but Thalia and Ernie told me that I had to also rehearse another ten songs to be ready for the tour. So I’ve got some work still on that.
Popular Culture Beat: Jason, made the album cover art, right? What’s the map –what location is the map there?
Jason Sydney Sanford: The map actually is from the Czech Republic. I was in the Czech Republic in 2017 for about three weeks and we came back with a stack of discarded maps, I don’t know why. And they’ve got kind of been in my collage box for a while. And then I went through a process where I kind of traced my hand and turned it into a vector graphic file and then fed that into a laser cutting machine to laser cut out a hand from the map and it turned out that the paper was a really nice quality on these on these Czech printed maps so I could immerse them in the moving water. I tried also with a Rand McNally map because I tried first with Boston, but it just tore up immediately.
Popular Culture Beat: We have time for just a couple more questions. Thalia, what was your guitar before you modified it? What brand name?
Thalia Zedek: It’s a Hagstrom. I’ve been playing a Hagstrom for a long time.
Popular Culture Beat: Are you specific about pickups? I have a friend who puts like a thousand dollar pickup from England or something, he buys these expensive Fenders. He puts expensive pickups anyway,
Thalia Zedek: No, I just find a guitar when I find a guitar that I like, I try not to mess with it.
Popular Culture Beat: Jason’s in Colorado now, so how did you all meet originally?
Thalia Zedek: Jason used to be in Boston. So we all met in Boston originally.
Popular Culture Beat: Did you meet at each other’s shows or did you do a call for artists?
Thalia Zedek: Each other’s shows. We knew each other — Jason had a band called Neptune and Ernie was in a band called Animal Hospital– that was the first time we ever played together.
Popular Culture Beat: I want to thank you for this interview. Your sound just bowled me over, and I immediately said to Dan, ‘please let me talk to them.’ So thank you for your time, and Bon Voyage on your tour.
Jason Sydney Sanford: Thank you, Keith.
Thalia Zedek: Thank you, Keith.
Ernie Kim: Bye Keith, thanks!
A Band Called E Dot Com
E On Instagram
E On Facebook
E On Bandcamp
Silver Rocket Records
Rare Signals Studio
Tape Op Magazine
E ‘Living Waters’ Review At Punkrockbeat.com
Part One of “E” Interview At Popularculturebeat.com
finis
Thank you Keith, that was an excellent two-part interview. Living Waters is one of my favourite albums of the year so far (along with Objections – Optimistic Sizing on Wrong Speed Records). I’ve been following Thalia’s work since Come began and of course I go back and check out all the other band links – you know how it can be…
This is the first time I’ve been on the blog (O was checking out what people had said about Living Waters) and I will keep coming back. Excellent work.
Glad to hear that. I agree, incredible album. I was so excited to interview them. KW