High Garden
Breaking Labels
Earlier this month, Reckless Magazine gave Southern California pop punk band Sept a disposable camera to document the behind the scenes antics of their “High Garden” Release Show at the Paramount in Los Angeles. The band opens up about having themes for their live sets, reinventing themselves, and showing raw emotion in their latest EP, “High Garden”.
Los Angeles, USA
You recently released your EP, "High Garden". What is the story behind the EP? What themes are you exploring?
We released “High Garden” to lightly introduce the direction we’re headed as a band. We’re currently known as a Surf Rock band because we used to write songs like that trying to fit into the Southern California music scene. But at the end of the day we love Green Day, Blink 182, All American Rejects - POP PUNK! We were limiting ourselves and our freedom as artists trying to be something we’re not. We’ve spent the past 2-3 years trying to break that label and reinvent ourselves, and “High Garden” is part of that.
How do these themes differ from your previous releases? How does "High Garden" show your growth as a band?
We focused heavy on our melodies and our lyricism. I think it comes through the most on the track “guess i’m leaving”. Every line, every part of that song is pure raw emotion. Things that I wasn’t even sure if I was fully comfortable writing about. For example “I just can’t take him grabbing your waist, you’ll make that face, and I can’t bare”. Intimacy between two people is special to them, and them only. Thinking about people being as close to someone as you once were, is a hard feeling to wrestle with. Throughout the entire EP I wanted every line to count and hit the same way it does here.
What kind of involvement did your new management have in releasing the EP? How was this experience new and different?
Working with Antony and John from “Candy Shop Management & Recordings” has been such a fun, productive, and rewarding experience for us. They helped us plan and organize to make this release way smoother and well thought out then we have before on our own. It’s great to have people with the knowledge and experience that we may be lacking in, helping guide us through it all.
What was the recording process like?
The recording was like nothing we’ve ever done before. All our previous projects before “High Garden” were all home recordings that we self produced. This was our first time stepping into a real studio, with a real producer. We didn’t know what to expect. What if things didn’t turn out exactly how we wanted them to? What if working with someone else is hard? Thank god we ended up landing ourselves with David over at Balboa Recording Studio. To say the least, he’s an absolute genius. He and Graham of “Sad Park” helped us take those demos, and make them into fully fleshed out songs. Every track felt so big and complete by the time we were done. We couldn’t have made it happen without them. An honorable mention I’d like to make is to “Marco” of “Deth Coast” and “The Offtrax”. The bass parts he wrote for these songs were big game changers in making them what they are.
What challenges did you face and what memorable moments did you experience during this process?
The only challenge I can think of was just the fact that we didn’t do it all in one go. We’d pop in for a weekend every three months or so. But that didn’t really shake us. One of the most memorable things was for every lunch we’d get sandwiches from the same Deli. I’d spend all week preparing my voice eating well, just to tear up a Meatball Sub in the middle of the session!
For each member, which songs are your favorite to play live?
My new favorite song to play is “guess im leaving” (Ben)
My favorite has to be “Build a Bong Workshop” (Roscoe)
I’m gonna go with “Quarantine Dumpster Cat” (Matt)
I love playing “Stacy“, I feel like it’s a perfect song for warped tour in 2009 (Misa)
And which songs resonate with you the most?
Gonna have to go with “guess im leaving” again. It’s just such an important song to me. I think it really captures the place I was at, sad, jealous, young and dumb (Ben)
I resonate most with the High Garden especially with the lyrics at the end. I’m paraphrasing but “no ones gonna end up being round, I’m not gonna make a fucking sound , I know I should go, but should I though?” I’m like hell yeah been there. Like why I gotta leave as a matter of fact I didn’t do anything, what the hell do I wanna be the bigger person for actually. (Matt)
I really resonate with “30 Minutes or Less” I mean just listen to the song and you’ll know what I mean (Roscoe)
The song that resonates with me isn’t even out yet so I’ll have answer for you in the next interview ;) (Misa)
You celebrated the release of "High Garden" by throwing a party with local event curators Revel Girl at The Paramount in Los Angeles. How did it go?
We worked so hard to make that release show what it was! The team at “Revel Girl” are so good at what they do. We’ve never worked with a promoter more hands on and involved than “Revel Girl”. They helped push and promote the show to a whole other level. We were so happy to find people that put as much care and attention to detail as we do. We had an amazing lineup of bands and everyone of them gave it all they had! “One Outta Ten” got the crowd going! “Roadtrip” had so much energy! And “Nervous Kids” have such a great sound! Check out “Nothing to Prove”. Certified Pop Punk banger!
You often have costume themes during your set and for this show, you had a cheerleader theme. What inspired this? What kind of planning went into it?
Our first group theme together was at our second Viva! Pomona performance, we dressed as cheerleaders. We wanted to improve on that idea and bring it back on a grander, flashier scale to represent our growth as a band. Not only musically, but in our performance too! Luckily we had Bambi. She spent months working on getting our custom cheer fits perfect and ready for the show!
What is next for the EP? What is next for Sept?
We’re gonna keep pumping out this EP and sharing it with the world. There’s always more music coming eventually, but for now we’ll just keep doing what we do best. Putting on crazy shows and getting our name out there any way possible. One thing I can say for sure about all of us is we’re ready for anything, and we’re hungrier than ever.
