Hailing from the winding streets of Boston, MA, Major Spark will take you on a wild ride through the world of music. Armed with a fleet of sensational influences—from psychedelic shredders like Hendrix and Black Angels to mega pop artists like Rihanna and Sofi Tukker to new wave acts like B-52s and New Order to intimate storytellers like The Shins—the band is a transmogrifier of sound. The group does more than just replicate their heroes’ sounds: they blend, twist, and blast them to new dimensions. This time, we got a chance to speak to the band and ask them some interesting questions. The band talks about how they came to be and what “Birds Aren’t Real” movement means, and much more:
Can you share your story of forming the band from the scratch?
Brian Charles and I met when he engineered a Magnet album at his Zippah Studio. The album was produced by Matt Wilson of Trip Shakespeare. A few years passed. I contacted Brian to try to make high energy tracks. We used a different writing technique than a band typically uses. Brian created rhythm tracks by looping live drums, and I wrote the core pieces of the songs to those tracks. Brian created structure and added guitars, keys etc. He then pushed me to not settle for crap lyrics, so each song has quite a few verses on the cutting room floor. We also use improvised vocal tracks to try to get something that goes beyond classic rhyme schemes. Then added the vocals of the amazing Miranda Serra and some horns and then live drums over the tracks.
How would you describe your music? What are your musical influences?
On Beautiful Noise, our debut, we aimed to create high energy music with guitar hooks you can hum. For “Birds Aren’t Real” Brian created a loop using a keyboard and a rhythm track. The “Birds” single is a bit more quirky than our album, so we felt it made sense to release it as a single. Each song has different influences. I am addicted to discovering new music, so I listen to college radio or playlists that have new releases. I probably find 2-3 songs/month that seep in as influences. For “Birds Aren’t Real” we know there’s a little Fred Schneider in the vocal delivery which fits the nature of the song. But – we were listening a bit to The Byrds and aimed for a Laurel Canyon vibe on the chorus.
What is the story behind the name Major Spark?
Naming a band is difficult as you probably know. Magnet is a terrible name – as there are 47 bands named Magnet including one that came after us – and had a huge hit song. We only considered two-word names. I have a book of around 300+ names – if you need one for your band. Major Spark fit what we were doing on Beautiful Noise – as we want the music to be a shot of caffeine to your day.
How long did you take to write the song “Birds Aren’t Real?” What does the title actually stand for?
I wrote the song without an instrument in about 3 minutes. I sang it to Brian, and he came up with the loop. We basically wrote and recorded it in one day. But. Then the building housing Zippah Studio burned to the ground in an 8-alarm fire… about 5 days after we recorded it. Given that “Birds Aren’t Real” questions the role of our government in creating a surveillance state, does the fire seem suspicious? We’re just asking. Birds Aren’t Real is a movement bringing attention to effort to replace all the birds with drones. You can read about it here.
Can you share your experience of making the music video of “Birds Aren’t Real?”
We like making found footage videos, and our friend Philip Stevenson, of Night World Records, has a knack for finding relevant video clips. Phil also directed the video for our song “Run Run Run” using a similar technique.
Watch the official video of “Birds Aren’t Real” on YouTube:
How did you come up with the music video’s theme? What is the “Birds Aren’t Real” movement?
I gave a simple answer above. The NY Times does a good job explaining it here.
….or do they? Maybe it’s not a “theory”?
None of the band members can be seen in the music video, did you purposefully do that? How did you get the animals that are featured in the video? Was it difficult to work with animals?
So, we did not shoot any of the footage. It’s all found footage. We did not work with animals in this video. But if you do some digging, you just might a short clip in which one of us appears with a well-trained dog in some deep snow in one of our other videos.
Why do you use the old-school video footage style in your music videos?
We’ve used this approach in two videos, “Run Run Run” and “Birds Aren’t Real.” I like the way it looks – and it’s a challenge to make it work with the song. Making impressionistic videos can be more interesting than videos that try to tell the story of the song. And – we like to be enviro friendly – so using recycled footage seems like a good idea. We’ve approached a couple other bands about using their footage for our videos, but nobody has given the green light.
What are your upcoming plans? When do we get to hear a follow-up to the “Birds Aren’t Real”?
Great question. Brian is truly grateful for the hundreds of donations he received following the fire. We are in the process of setting up a new studio in the Boston area. The funds from the GoFundMe are a huge help bringing the new studio to life. Brian is changing the name of the studio to Rare Signals. Once that’s complete we will finish album number two – hopefully by the end of this year.
Lastly, would you say a few words about your fans and followers?
Well. We have not played live, so they are a bit of a mystery to us. We are not going to be another XTC and avoid the stage forever, but we’re not going to play live until there’s an audience. Is that a chicken and egg thing? Do you remember chickens before they all became drones?
Photo courtesy of Major Spark
