features

Web Exclusive: A conversation with the Dear Hunter's Casey Crescenzo

Rachel Lux on 6/24/09 @ 7:00 AM

Initially conceived as a side project during downtime when frontman CASEY CRESCENZO was in THE RECEIVING END OF SIRENS, THE DEAR HUNTER formed into a full- time affair after things went sour with his former bandmates and he left TREOS in 2006. Crescenzo used his boundary-free project as a way to branch out from standard musical fare and lyrical constraints. "A lot of people write songs about themselves and that's boring," he says. "Most people aren't that interesting. I accepted that I wasn't interesting enough to have a song about me, so I started romanticizing my life." As the Dear Hunter release the third act of a planned six-part trilogy, AARON FOWLER caught up with Crescenzo to uncover more about the innerworkings of life as the Dear Hunter.

How did you arrive at the concept of the six-act series for the Dear Hunter albums?
After the Receiving End Of Sirens recorded our first full-length, we all took a month off. I went home and recorded a bunch of demo songs just because I still felt like making music. There was no real plan at the beginning. It just started shaping up that what I was writing was very dramatic and reflective of my own life. After I assembled some song ideas, I kind of got the inspiration to romanticize my own encounters a bit and turn it into some sort of story. It was originally just going to be a side project for fun, but then things went south with me and the Receiving End Of Sirens. I got the opportunity to do the Dear Hunter full time. It started out with doing one record and then I got inspired by the idea of making something a little bit more grand and more involved. That's when I flushed it out into six acts.

Now that your brother Nick Crescenzo is on drums, are there any plans to get the rest of the family involved?
Absolutely. I would love that. My dad played banjo on Act II. I would love to use anything they would want to do on a record. It really didn't work out this time because we were recording in Providence, Rhode Island, and I really didn't have any time to go home to track [my family members]. I will definitely do something with them on the next record.

Did you feel pressure to make Act III especially epic since it's essentially the arc of the series?
No, not really. At first, I was a little concerned when recording it that it might be a bit too light for some of the stuff we had done in the past. But then the way the record shaped up, it became much more intense. The subject matter is a bit darker and it's less uplifting and lighthearted, so it lends itself more to that, but there was no real decision or goal set to make it bigger, more intense or heavier. That was never the plan, it just shaped up that way.

The illustrated book of Act II: The Meaning Of, And All Things Regarding Ms. Leading is finally coming out with the deluxe edition of the new record. Was the plan always to release it now or did it take a full two years to get it released?
No, it took time and that was the best possible way to get it out. I had it originally planned with a publishing company, but then my manager convinced me it was a bad idea and that I could do better. Then it kind of just fell apart. It got hard to do with no money and no support, but it was something that I just sort of kept alive. With the spare money I had and with the help of my friend who did the artwork for the record, Glenn [Thomas] of We Are Synapse Design in Australia, we kind of helped keep it alive. Eventually Fred [Feldman, founder of ] Triple Crown Records, asked if I wanted to do something special with the Act III release. It felt a bit deceitful, because I knew they were not going to put money into it to make a nice hardcover presentation like we wanted, but they did make the whole package look really beautiful. I'm really happy it came out, but when you are writing a book and working with an artist in planning a children's book for adults, you're never really super-excited that maybe one day this book could be included as bonus material.

The gap between writing, recording and post-production seemed a lot longer this time around. What was different?
The difference in time between Act I and Act II was so short because there was no real support for Act I and there was no reason to tour for a year-and-a-half or two years for an EP. I really only did that record because I wanted to have a beginning to the whole story and I wanted to test it out. After getting out of the Receiving End Of Sirens, I just wanted to find out where I wanted to go musically and that was what the EP was for me. I was searching, and at the same time starting something new so it seemed right to jump right in to record and write Act II shortly after that. Then Act II did proportionally better. I guess compared to nothing, it was successful for us. So we supported it for as long as we could before we were playing it out, and that was the point we decided to go and make a new record. It really wasn't anything more than that.

The new record is vast in scope from the very beginning. How did a multi-layered track like "In Cauda Venenum" come to form?
Actually, I tried to write it a few times and I wanted it to be pretty exciting and pretty intense. I had a few versions of the song that I had written. I was sitting in the studio practicing and the riffs at the beginning and in the verse just kind of jumped into my head. We worked on the demo that day and then pretty much finished the song. It just came out of nowhere. With a song like that, you just let it dictate where it is going and what kind of instrumentation you want to use. It wasn't really too labored over. Everything that is on the record came from listening to the song and letting it tell you what it wants.

"The Tank" seems downright theatrical. Have you ever thought about having a companion film to coincide with any of the records?
Absolutely! I would love to. Especially with Act III, since I feel it is the most eventful story that is going to be in the acts. It's the most action-packed, I suppose. [Laughs.] It would lend itself very well to a script and a good set of visuals.

Was it a relief to shy away from the more complex songs with simpler ones like "Go Get Your Gun"?
Yes, I do love a good simple song. Like on the last record, a song like "Smiling Swine" was the same kind of thing. You write so many songs that are very intricate and have a lot to them that you get to almost a point when you have a relapse; All you can push out is something very simple and it's a welcome point. That was the point with "Go Get Your Gun." I really love that song for just that reason. It's just very straightforward and not trying to be anything it isn't--not that I feel the other songs are, but it is just very basic and I like that.

The record ends on a somber note with "Life And Death." Is there anything you can reveal about the act that follows?
Yeah. I think the best way to describe Act IV is that it's a very political act that follows. Someone returns after a war and uses their experience in the wrong way. They're taking advantage of the fact that they may have done something heroic when, in reality, they were just really doing what they were there to do. That's definitely the best way to describe where it's going. It gets worse. On the first record, there were a lot of happy and serene moments. The second record was uplifting, and I think as the story goes on it's going to get a bit more twisted and less uplifting until the end. alt

Comments

Post a Comment

No comments yet!



  |     |   Share   |   Print this article