I'd like to meet:
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes Awww!" -Kerouac.
Music:
Cinematic Sounds
The night before I spoke with Munaf Rayani of Explosions in the Sky , I listened to their album All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone at fullest volume as I drove through just-green Pungo fields and a dead-silent Back Bay Wildlife Refuge with the top to my convertible down and open to the stars as they appeared one by one the further southeast I traveled. It was, I’m certain, a perfect way to hear this music.
Their cinematic, instrumental songs play to those of us who want our music intense, intelligent, gut-wrenching and narrative. These are not silly little ditties about the stupidity of high school girls. No, it’s instead the kind of music that soldiers listen to, thinking about their home lives and their lost dreams; that lovers play as they watch storms move across plains from the backs of pick-up trucks. It is literally the kind of music that makes you feel like you’re in the pivotal scene of a movie.
"Whenever I hear it back, the music definitely has the cinematic quality that we’re very happy showed up," Rayani said when I told him so. "We think of a lot of different images and scenes and stories in our own minds that we put into these songs and try to play accordingly. Instrumental music offers a lot of room for the imagination to run. So I guess you driving through a wildlife refuge with the top down—I’m glad the music matched up.
"There was a song that we wrote a couple albums ago called ‘Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean,’" said Rayani, "which was a direct result of the story of the Russian submarine called the Kursk that went down a handful of years ago and just remained at the bottom of the ocean. The Russian government wouldn’t allow anyone to help them because of the nuclear stuff on board, so they let these sailors just wait at the bottom of the ocean until they ultimately passed away. They ran out of air, ran out of oxygen. That was a story that hit us pretty heavily as to how people can be.
"We also wrote a song, ‘The Only Moment We Were Alone,’ which is a story that we made up about a 12- and 13-year-old boy and girl, falling in love, and then the kid stealing his parents’ car and then them driving away."
At a time in rock music (and in America) when cynicism and sharpness are employed to far greater degree than unfiltered, heart-on-your-sleeve (if not in your throat) emotion, Explosions in the Sky’s unironic, soaring crescendos hearken to fellow instrumentalists The Flaming Lips and Mogwai.
"Certainly with The Flaming Lips ," agreed Rayani, "who we cited as an influence for the longest time, even though our music may not sound like theirs, they were still a great influence on us for their bombast and their sincerity and just being genuine about a sound. That was very appealing and attractive to us—why would you do something half-assed or even more than a little half-assed and be kind of ironic about it? I mean, no. That shit is out. We’re as serious as a heart attack. Everybody knows that we play every crescendo that we come up with, every melody that carries weight—it’s with every ounce of sincerity that we have. There’re no jokes in this music. In fact, we often say, ‘Keep your jokes out of my music.’ I think that sometimes people or musicians hardly stand up for anything or believe in anything anymore. This is something that we believe in wholeheartedly and have since day one and will until our final day. Look what can be accomplished if you’re true to it. And that’s something so hard to achieve: pure honesty. To be honest in your sound and yourself."
It does take courage to do that which sounds so easy, though. To be sincere and honest, I tell Rayani, is probably the hardest thing you can do sometimes, particularly in your art.
"Well, we’re definitely doing our damnedest. All the things that affect us in this life, in art, it comes from a very honest place. Those writers, those musicians, those artists that strike a chord in us, we believe them, so in turn we try to produce a sound in which people can believe. And how spectacular and what a beautiful thing: that music can elicit emotions in someone. And I don’t even mean our music, I just mean music in general. Or, again, art for that matter. You can see a picture or you can read a story or you can hear a song, and you well up. It happens because of that honesty that you try to convey in those thoughts, you know? Therein lies an amazing amount of inspiration. That capability in anyone to be moved by something. Because if you can’t be moved by anything, then yeah, the cynicism has gotten the best of you. And I hope it never catches up with me, at least."
-HS, , 04.08.2008
Movies:
"Sans toi, les émotions d'aujourd'hui ne seraient que la peau morte des émotions d'autrefois." "Who's to say that love needs to be soft and gentle?" "Walking back to you is the hardest thing I could do." "I had you pegged, didn't I?" "You had the whole human race pegged." "We lived on sunlight and chocolate bars. It was the afternoon of extravagant delight."
Television:
"Why do people have to die?" "To make life important."
Books:
"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star."