Page 26 - The Noise September 2016

INTERVIEW: CereAl MIlk by beVerley nAPAlM
ionly recently became aware of the charms of Flagstaff’s Cereal Milk. My first exposure was just last month, when I reviewed their live performance in this magazine. I was smitten enough by the band’s raw beauty to investigate further, and was delighted to discover their re- cent debut recordings. Just four songs (so far), but loaded with potential. Singer and guitarist Kristopher Kohl is an engaging and enigmatic performer, though still modest enough to not fully exploit this fact. His songs are robust and catchy, jagged and emotional. And from a song- writing perspective chock full of ideas, brilliantly conceived and constructed. Fresh back from a recent mini-tour, I posed the following questions to Kristopher.
I’m interested in the geography of sound. You’re from the East Coast originally right? How did you end up in Flagstaff?
I was born in Texas. But I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, probably the most formative years of my life. That’s where I had my first band and where I was introduced to Emo, Post-Hard- core bands like Get Up Kids, Hot water Music, The Anniversary, Planes Mistaken for stars, that sort of shampoo. I moved to Long Island, New York in 2000 to go to a prep board- ing school, where I was further exposed to more Pop-Emo bands like northstar, Knapsack and Brand new. However, I was treating my time there like one giant weed-fueled vacation and performing like piss academically ... So, eventually, I decided I should just come home to Phoenix where my parents were, and finish my senior year of high school there. I hung around Phoenix for another 10 years or so, and in 2009, I think, moved up to Flagstaff to go to school at NAU.
You have a refreshingly simpatico rhythm section with Trever (drums) and Cesar (bass). How did you find and involve those guys?
I met Trever through our mutual friend Eric, who we played in a band called Human weather with. Trev and I, over the past few years, have become kind of like siblings, having gone through a lot of tumultuous, heavy shifts and changes in our lives together. Trever and I met cesar by playing shows at a venue called Trunk space in Phoenix. He would typically book and co-ordinate the shows for our old band. When I started filling out the Cereal Milk songs, Trev and Cesar were two of my best buds, and seemed like natural fits for band- mates, as I figured it is usually more fun to play music with your friends!
Your style, particularly the guitar sound, seems inspired by, though not restricted to, a ‘90s alternative Emo vibe. Would you consider that a fair comment? Is that part of the Cereal Milk genetic make-up?
Absolutely, I was introduced to bands like The Jealous sound, the Julianna Theory, and Midtown in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. But I’ve certainly noticed more alt-pop-radio- hits-type influences coming out too. Some person at one of our shows said that I reminded them of a more aggressive Adam Duritz [from Counting Crows], which makes total sense. Of course bands like The Gin Blossoms, Everclear, Third Eye Blind have had a huge influence on me, that whole ‘97 alt-rock-jangle-pop era...
Your lyrics have a raw and confessional style. Would you care to comment on your approach to lyrics? Is there an inspiration as to how you write lyrics, or does it just spill out?
I’d consider myself a fairly transparent person — almost sometimes to a fault, so I will totally explain my approach to writing these jammers as candidly as I can. This past year/ year-and-a-half has been very very weird and tumultuous, one that has held a lot of shifts and hard changes. Last summer I got divorced from my partner of 7 years. The year leading up to that I spent moving away from, eventually denouncing and shrugging off Christianity; a religion that I was heavily raised in, as my father was a Baptist minister for most of my life.
And as a result of these two shifts, there were major changes to the way I approach new relationships and ideologies amongst so many other things. So, the context to my songs contains a bunch of me wading through these new thoughts, navigating new romantic endeavors, and forming new life goals. A lot of the heavy hardships of the aforementioned changes though are balanced, in my mind, by a frequent referencing of my friendships and community that has acted as my newfound salvation so to speak, which makes me insanely grateful and happy to think about.
I wanted to talk about your recent songs, recorded with David Strackany in Flagstaff. The pro- duction is great. It’s balanced and has captured your bands urgency very well. Did you record live? Are these your first recordings as Cereal Milk?
Yeah, the recordings with David1 are the first recordings we’ve done with Cereal Milk. We did most of the bass and drum tracking live and I went back over and did guitar and vocals separately. Yeah, I was amazed by the brilliant quality of what David refers to as “very rough mixes.” But ‘urgent’ is probably the most concise way to describe these four tracks as we cranked them out in order to have an EP to take with us on our most recent tour with Dogbreth. [1David Strackany is a sound engineer in Flagstaff. He can be found at various eve- nings of the week either at Firecreek, The Orpheum or The Green Room. His is also recording engineer/producer at The Hive, Flagstaff.]
You are currently on a brief tour. Your songs sound very immediate to me. How have you found the reception from town to town?
So, yeah, this past tour was with our dear friends in Dogbreth. They were releasing their newest album, Second Home, and asked us to join them on their Southern California and Central Coast leg of their tour. It’s funny that you would use a word like immediate in refer- ring to these songs because I’ve been teasing them out for the better part of this last year. And as I mentioned before, we hammered these songs out in less than a week. But the more we would play them live, the more I found myself being critical, or more aware of my song’s structure, elements, cadences ... And I was hearing these songs as songs I was very proud of, but that I also feel are still in their early, infantile, rough stages and in need of some supplemental parts, and harmonies.
For your listening pleasure, you can grab a bowlful at Cerealmilk.bandcamp.com . And keep your eyes peeled pop-pickers, as Cereal Milk play regularly around the region.
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