Spaceport recently released their sophomore album, Cut the Lake. They are an interesting band, with an interesting sound and an interesting story unfolding in real time. It’s hard not to watch and listen with intent because it feels like something it happening, and you can see them May 1 at The Cedar Cultural Center.
Please tell me about the band.
The core of our band is the trio: me [Arianna Wegley], my partner Todd Olson, and our friend Liam Moore, but it exists in a lot of different forms. It first grew out of my personal instrumental experimentation, and then evolved into a remote recording project. I was writing some songs and sending them to Todd, and he recorded drums for them at his home studio. Eventually we started playing live versions of these recorded songs with Liam on bass, really developing our chemistry as a trio. We play in different formats, often inviting Matt Olson to play synth with us when we want a fuller sound/arrangement, or doing small duo shows with just me and Todd for more intimate venues.
I wouldn’t say we’re a capital E “experimental” band but we are always playing around, trying new things, and incorporating a lot of different techniques, ideas, and influences into our music. We have a lot of fun playing different types of shows and adjusting our sound to the moment: rocking out at a DIY basement show, or writing different arrangements of the songs for quieter settings. Playing shows is a way for us to get out of our heads and into the real world with our friends, family, and strangers.
I see that your debut album, Window Seat, was featured in Bandcamp’s “New and Notable and that helped Dave Simonett connect with you. Can you tell us the impact of that connection? I love to see local musicians lift each other up.
That was an incredible moment for us. We’ve all been fans of Dave’s music for a long time, so we were really honored that he listened to Window Seat and enjoyed it. We actually found out he heard it when he invited us to open for his band Dead Man Winter at the First Avenue Mainroom. To be honest, at first, we were a little confused and thought maybe there was some kind of mistake or clerical error… we weren’t really confident we were being called to play the Mainroom until we saw the poster. The show was an insane experience and a really uplifting moment for all of us. Like just about any other music fan in the Twin Cities, we’d been there countless times and witnessed some of our favorite musicians play on that stage.
It was a major boost for us to get a stamp of approval from an artist we really respect and admire. We used that energy and momentum to push ourselves and try something new and ambitious with the second record, Cut the Lake. Dave is good friends with, and a collaborator of, a lot of the people who helped us record the album, so it was great to weave this little web of local music connections. Something we love about the Minneapolis music community is that people are looking out for each other and lifting each other up. In the current music landscape, I think “success” has been and continues to be redefined. The opportunity to make a living as a musician is really difficult. For us, success is building community and love through music.
Your songs are observational in a way that gives homage to lighting a cigarette (Lungs), watching the sunset bleed or snowfall (Make Things Right). What inspires the songs? Do you set out to write a song a look around or are you looking around and a song starts bubbling up? Or maybe something very different?
To me, the impetus to write songs feels like a primal biological urge – like eating and sleeping. I can’t help it, it’s a basic function of my existence in the world. The rhythm of doing it, however, changes all the time for me. When ideas aren’t rising to the top, I settle into the awareness that I just need to live longer, to go do something. Make some history – fill up the tank, so to speak.
I am most inspired right when I get home after seeing a show, or if I’m really going through something. Images stick with me, and I have a pretty good memory, so I’m always putting together bits and pieces in the background of my mind. When ideas start to emerge or solidify more clearly, it can come out all at once, or in chunks over time. It ranges from feeling like a projectile regurgitation to an extremely subtle and gentle uncovering.
My writing has always been pretty sincere and curious. On Cut the Lake, it was intentional to still write in an observational style, but without being too specific. We wanted to evoke a certain timelessness and universality that is actually very epic and vast. Our debut LP Window Seat was hyper-specific, very close-to-home, packed with detail and funny and weird stories. Cut the Lake is a bit more mature, definitely more serious and cryptic with its signs and symbols, and and even at its most dense and soaring moments, technically more sparse than Window Seat.
Can you tell me about Switch? It just strikes me with an authentic chord.
“Switch” is a funny song because I wrote most of it but Todd helped with some verses and parts of the chorus I was stuck on, so we think of it really differently. When he heard what I’d written at first, it made him think of adventure games that he loved, like Zelda and Dark Souls. I was writing about feeling frustrated with myself, and he connected that to the specific turmoil of being stuck in a hard video game. My brain’s mental loops are like running around looking for that missing key to get to the next area, or fighting the same boss over and over and over again.
A fun fact is that I was rewatching all the Alien movies while writing this song, and I was kind of imagining myself as a “synthetic” and admiring, but feeling distant to, Sigourney Weaver’s character who is very cool, self-actualized, and survives the xenomorph (scariest monster of all-time). I also had just visited Puerto Rico, where my mom’s side is from, and I was picturing El Morro, where you look out and see this big windy field surrounded by the endless Atlantic – one great expanse eclipsed by another really makes you feel small.
When we play this song live, Todd sets it up by saying “this song is about Dark Souls!” and then I usually say that it’s really about having OCD, but I suppose it’s both. Songs are about whatever you think they’re about. We had a lot of fun recording this one, and I think you can really hear the life in the room. Though it’s sad and longing, the energy of the song pushes through that despair.
Please tell us about the upcoming album release show.
We’re really excited for the release show, it’s going to be a unique concert experience for sure! We wanted to try something different than the standard opener-headliner format, so we’re doing a double-album release with family band Robot Slide, with whom we share bandmates. Todd and Liam are core members of both bands, and Matt who fronts Robot Slide often plays in Spaceport. I play cello on a few Robot Slide songs! We’re doing two mixed sets and having each band’s songs interspersed throughout the night. I think a visual component really elevates a show to the next level, so we invited two different visual artists to do live projections to accompany the music.
The show is May 1st at The Cedar Cultural Center. It’s our favorite venue and one of the best sounding rooms in the city. May Day is such a wonderful weekend in Minneapolis, so we feel grateful to have our own little part in the celebration and festivities!
Mostly Minnesota 