About You Bids "Farewell To Ghosts" On New Single
This is Finley for 88.7 WLUW. Last week, I had the chance to speak with LA-based band About You in regard to the songwriting process, touring, and their upcoming single “Farewell To Ghosts.” Check that out next…
Finley Harrison
Thank you so much for joining me. Last I saw you, y'all were playing at Captain Quack’s in Austin. That was a really good show. I liked the entire showcase, and I hadn't seen y'all perform live before, so that was great. I instantly, really fell in love with your music and everything. So how have you been since then? What have you been up to since? I know, it's only been a few days, but…
Max Poscente
Honestly, so much has happened. The whole band got the flu and nobody was able to make it to the Houston show except me, as far as recovery goes. Everybody stayed in Dallas, just like quarantining and recovering so that we're good for our New Orleans show. And I really pushed myself to my limits during the Houston show. But I'm really glad I did it. And it's so nice to be in Houston again.
So did that end up being a solo set for you in Houston?
Yeah.
Okay. And is the band that you play with a permanent band for About You? Or is it kind of switching? Like, is it just for this tour? How's that kind of working?
It switches out. I mean, if the budget permits, the band is really a five or six-piece.
Okay.
So it being a four-piece is still I think impactful. And we can deliver something unique and kind of, for the most part, deliver the sound. But a lot of About You’s sound is kind of these ways of integrating, new and electronic with familiar and analog. When it's a four-piece, it tends to be more on just the analog side than the electronic side. Yeah, like I was thinking today, you know, I can't wait to be able to have an auxiliary percussionist, or like an extra synth player, or an extra singer. Yeah, so to answer your question, no, it changes up all the time.
Okay. That's interesting. I was kind of thinking about that. Because I know like, when I saw you in Austin, you had a band with you. But then I followed you guys on Instagram after and I was looking on your account and everything. And I know like, your name is in the display name section of your Instagram. I didn't know if it was like, you're the, you know, like the main permanent member, and then the band kind of switches out.
Yeah, that's what it is.
Okay, that makes sense. So speaking of About You kind of as a whole, where does the inspiration for “About You” as a name come from?
There's a few things it comes from. I mean, mainly, it comes from wanting to take people's stories and turn them into a song. And in this way, I think I'm achieving the ultimate About You goal, which is to bring the audience or the fan or the friend into the circle of the band in a much more intimate way than I think other bands are able to do. So that's part of it. But also another part of it is, I think we live in a very I-centric world. People's energy and ethos tend to revolve internally. Whenever something's about them, people tend to pay attention more. So it's kind of like a counter to an I-centric narrative. And it's also to kind of get people's attention a little bit, because it's like, “Oh, ‘about me,’ what do you mean?”
Yeah, I really liked that. And speaking of taking people's stories, and kind of turning them into your music, and everything… The main thing I wanted to talk to you about today was you have a new song that's going to be released in a few days on March 27th, I believe.
Wooo!
Yes, I'm so excited for that official release, and you were kind enough to send it to me to listen to as well. So I've listened to it a few times since I heard it live at Captain Quack’s. And you practiced it with such a special and interesting story. And I was wondering if you'd be willing to kind of recap that and talk on the song a little bit more for people who might be unfamiliar with it?
Yeah, of course. So a friend of mine sent me a story when we began taking stories about being homeless in North Carolina. And she, while homeless, was seeing this guy who gave ghost tours. You know, like the types of tours where you go around a neighborhood that's presumably haunted and “If you look in this corner…” you know, “this murder 200 years ago happened and over here” you know, “some vengeful spirit or…” something something. So he gave ghost tours. And he had a family. He had a wife and kids, and he had a house. So a housed person with kind of this, albeit slightly strange being the ghost tour giver. But he had this commercial success he had more societally deemed, you know, success, or he just fit into the groove of society more. So while she's seeing him, she's simultaneously growing stronger with her fellow unhoused community. And all the while this affair that they're having turned slightly abusive. And I think the abuse reaches a some some amount of climax, to where completely ended things but all the while she's found refuge in her fellow unhoused. That juxtaposition of where she found safety counter to the stereotype that I feel like a lot of people have that people in the streets aren't safe. And of course, there's plenty of people who don't believe that, but I think that might be more of a collective unconscious belief. Especially in America, especially in LA, especially in LA. Yeah, and that just really spoke to me. I loved humanizing and giving a voice and hopefully inspiring some amount of conversation to provide more humanity to people on the street. Yeah, and just like a casual way, not like, go… you know, the soup kitchens are great too, you know, donate your time and stuff. But I think just treating people like humans goes such a long way. Like the little acts of kindness.
Yeah, absolutely. It's incredible. I'm glad you've been able to share your friend's story in that way, and kind of negate some of the stereotypes and preconceived notions that people hold, I guess in regard to like, the unhoused communities of different areas. So how much, I guess, creative freedom would you say you had with that song? Oh, which by the way, I meant to mention the song title. And I'm not sure if you did or not. But I really appreciate that it's called “Farewell To Ghosts.” That kind of play on, you know, the profession of that person who she was seeing. So with “Farewell To Ghosts,” when it came to writing that, how much creative freedom did you have? And how much input did your friend give you when it came to telling her story?
So I put out this, like, very general, “Hey, we're called About You. Send us your stories, we're turning them into songs.” So it's just like a video I made. I got maybe 20 stories. A handful of which were guys trying to get me to write like, “take me back” songs to like, their exes. I was like, “Bro, I’m not gonna wingman this like, sexcapade” or whatever.
Right.
But then there were other stories that were so beautifully written. And then the narrative was beautiful too, like this, “Farewell To Ghosts.” And, yeah, I think there was a mutual understanding that I'm going to do my best to tell the story and simultaneously, they gave me the creative freedom to kind of do what I want with it. I think them, all these people knowing me, they know, I'm not going to butcher their story. I mean, sometimes I take the creative liberty like one of our former singles, “Jessi,” I made it into a metaphor of this giant metaphor. But with “Farewell To Ghosts” it’s much more literal. I mean, of course, there's lines of metaphor. But generally, the story is very, very clear. I'd say. Or at least we did our best to make it clear. But then I wrote it with a friend Elliott Skinner, who I went to high school with. So we started writing it in quarantine. And it was like, late 20… or like, mid 2020 right around when people were like, “Okay, I thought we were gonna be done with COVID by now, but it's still dragging on.” Yeah, we like, you know, took the precautions to try and write over Zoom, it was like, “You know, like, I'm healthy. I'm negative, if you're cool, like, just come over.” So him and his wife came over, which is super sweet, Julie. And we swam a bit and we played some music, and we still have the voice memo, and it's a really special voice memo. You can hear the fabric of the song, the foundation of the song pretty clearly. And you Elliott is just an absolute mastermind and completely realized musician. And playing with him is such an honor. And he's just my boy. But yeah, the chemistry is just magic. And I told him about this thing that I was doing where I was taking stories. And he really dug it. So we took this piece of music that I had mostly written, but there were a couple of sections I hadn't figured out and we just jammed on it for a bit and some bulk melodies came out of it, some new sections came out of it. Some words came out of it. And yeah, over the next three years with my producer, Jeff. And Jeff and I ended up finishing a lot of those lyrics. We finished the song, and yes, absolutely, like a star-studded cast. My friend Ian Chang is on drums. Just a wizard behind the kit. And Scott Lee is on bass, equally a wizard on the bass. And the two of them as a rhythm section was just like, it was… it was just like, have you seen the commercial. It's like, “Duh duh nuh nuh nuh! Duh duh nuh nuh nuh!” The guy’s sitting in the chair, and you can't see it, but off-screen it's like a jet engine?
Yeah!
He’s being blown away. He's like, holding on. Listening to that rhythm section was just like, it was the same. Yeah, everybody in the control room was freaking out. Like, “These guys are on fire!” And I love playing with them so much. And yeah, and then my friend Carter who engineered it ended up mixing it. And Jeff and I's relationship is really special too, which is like a whole other story. But yeah, that's the short answer long.
That's really beautiful. It's interesting to hear how that came together. It really seems like it was a great pairing. And I, of course, don't know, you know, the original story that the song came from. But it really sounds like you did her justice with her story and everything. So yeah, I look forward to being able to stream that come March 27th.
Woohoo!
Definitely super excited. So yeah, I kind of just have one last question for you. And that is, What does the future look like for About You? What's in store for y'all?
Our aim musically is to create what the future of rock ‘n’ roll sounds like. And that's through taking mediums that are familiar, like I said, these like analog mediums, but then coupling them with more modern day things that draw from more modern genres like house music or hip hop, or… Yeah, I don't know, just things that revolve around more electronics. So the future of About You is releasing more singles. I think continuing to push forward and making music that defines what rock ‘n’ roll will sound like. And releasing a record. Yeah, we're, we're gonna be touring the US a bunch coming through Chicago probably in August. It feels like things are really building right now in a great way. Like we have this video that's taking off and yeah, I think the future About You is like, TBD. But I feel very good about it.
Love it! Yeah. Well, you guys have a great thing going for you. So I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and break down the song and you as a band and everything. So yeah, thanks so much.
Finley, thank you for being interested. Thank you for asking. And I'm so glad to hear it resonated. I hope that resonates with anybody listening.
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Stream About You on Spotify below!