Interview: Family and Friends hunt down life’s savage truths with debut album

Your mid- to late-20s are some of the most important and transformative years of anyone’s life. You’re asking for truth from yourself and others and begging to find your way. You weave in and out of uncertainty, excessive drinking and midnight hours riddled with uneasy sleep and seemingly-unassailable anxiety. That state of being is like a pressure cooker ready to burst ⎯⎯ and it’s a necessary rite of passage. Beastly Athens-bred folk-rock band Family and Friends, who extract their moniker from the belief that we all need, well, family and friends to fuel us through life, dissect their own story with their debut record, Felix Culpa, Latin for “happy mistake,” illustrating that awkward and harsh transition between youth and adulthood. They assemble a zippy and sobering 12-track thread line, whose cumbersome weight can be viscerally experienced with such crucial ornaments as “Double Vision” (“Curse that crave that can’t be cured / Yeah, you start the fire just to watch it burn,” sings Mike MacDonald, slender and sedating) and “Shivers,” in which he mourns the burning out of a relationship, one year later, singing, “Heartbreak, hard to find any truth in your lies / Face to the pillow smothered / This is what it means to suffer.”

Later, he concedes time hasn’t been the healing agent he had hoped it would be, snarling, “I’ve gotta get away / They say it gets better / Well, the shit ain’t getting any easier.” The broken shards of his heart are being held together with Elmer’s glue, an apt solution in the heat of the post-trauma moment but falls apart again in due time. “[That song] was a release, personally. I was in this stage in my life where everything felt so entirely stagnant. I felt like I was just spinning wheels trying to gain any kind of traction,” frontman MacDonald tells B-Sides & Badlands, dismembering the song and exactly what led to putting his pain to paper. It’d be knee-jerk to dub the song as simply a bitter detour through the past and move on, but the song is embedded in the band’s own journey after the release of two successful EPs, 2014’s Love You Mean It and the 2015 follow-up called XOXO.

“We had experienced some initial success off of our first two EPs, and rather than capitalizing immediately on that momentum, we holed up for a few years to write this album. It was a trying time to a degree,” writes MacDonald, rather freely, in an email chain. Hindering factors ranged from the music itself to blows in personal lives, blockading their creative energy with a bad aura, which hung over like a stormy weather cloud on the edge of popping. “It was the first time I’d ever written with others in mind, and I was experiencing real writer’s block at the time. I’d grown up writing as a personal outlet. I’d sneak away to closets or bathrooms or anywhere I could find a quiet space and be alone,” he says. Expectations had been cemented, so to live up to those seemed hopeless and devastating. Add to it all, “I was also (in hindsight probably irrationally) feeling as though we’d been pigeonholed and labeled as a certain sound when I knew deep down we were capable of so much more.”

Felix Culpa is wreathed and embellished with many other mammoth discoveries. On “Youth and Young,” a frantically-laced mid-tempo, trickling and pressed with alarming thumps of percussion, they clutch to their innocence, which rarely escapes the finite boundaries of youth. “I keep having this same dream again / Falling in slow motion from a burning building / Bracing for the ground beneath / Wake up in a cold sweat wondering, what this all means,” MacDonald observes on the opening lines, framing the dream as something larger than he could even conceive on this own. It’s a perception damned to nostalgia, a double-edged sword, bitter and sweet and tart and excruciatingly blissful. “One emotion I’ve always found fascinating is nostalgia. It’s such a bittersweet feeling of love and loss and, for me personally, resonates with what it truly means to live and be alive. When you’re young, you have this sense of invincibility ⎯⎯ not just in terms of mortality but also creatively and in most other facets of life, I think. There’s a real sense of imagination and awe at the surrounding world and this untamed desire to discover. It’s all so pure. As we grow, we tend to box in what’s acceptable and put rules to what’s allowed and what’s not. It can be hindering. I find I’m constantly fighting adulthood, for better or worse, to not let go and lose sight of that inner child.”

So, the chain of happy mistakes in coming of age ⎯⎯ of holding on but letting go, of bleeding into the next stage of existence ⎯⎯ is not only vital but unavoidable. It’s coming like a freight train, full-steam ahead. For MacDonald, he grants that the troupe of players, which include Alejandro Rios (percussion), Ryan Houchens (percussion), JP McKenzie (guitar) and Tuna Fortuna (bass), have “always been big into reading the signs the universe presents us. I remember when we were first toying with the idea of forming a band, Ryan and I were really into ‘The Alchemist,’ MacDonald says. “We really believed that if we worked hard enough, believed passionately enough and put our goals out there, we would be rewarded in some way. Even the setbacks and obstacles were just tests of how bad we really wanted to pursue this ultimately.”

He wouldn’t exactly call them “mistakes,” as “much as a lot of fortunate circumstances occurred for us to be where we are today. Even just down to meeting and being in the same place at the same time for this all to happen. Maybe it all means nothing in the scheme of things, but internalizing it and instilling it all with purpose gives reason to continue believing it’s worth pursuing,” he adds.

In the end, Family and Friends’ Felix Culpa is a bewitching, shrewd and totally life-affirming scrapbook, a roadmap, if you will. From the soul-pulverizing “Hold on to Your Love” to the sparkle of “Ouroboros” to the gentle ripple of “Better Days,” the long-player oozes a radiant, replenishing quality, and given the very gruesome and brutal nature of the world in 2018, it’s a remarkable set of confessions we all need to fold into the fabric of our own lives.

Below, MacDonald wastes no space to discuss songwriting, becoming an adult, feeling alive and musical ambitions.

You’ve stated in an interview with PopMatters that you needed to sort out the collaborative nature of the songwriting. What exactly did you need to sort out?

For our first two EPs, I would generally bring a finished or mostly-finished song to the band that I had written on an acoustic guitar, and we would flush out parts from there together. Sometimes, verses would get rearranged or bridges altered and whatnot, but the core structure usually remained the same. It worked well in the past, but after sticking with the same method for two EPs, it proved stifling to a degree. From the outset, it already felt like it put us in a box where every song had essentially the same core DNA.

We knew the next step for us was to write a full-length ⎯⎯ something we’d never done as a group together. We decided to essentially reinvent the process and open it up to a more collaborative atmosphere in hopes of pursuing new sounds and pushing ourselves some, sonically. I had never written entire songs in such a group atmosphere before, and it was definitely challenging at first. I can tend to be pretty stubborn in those situations, and often times, it can be difficult to take a step back and see someone else’s idea through in place of your own. Usually, lyrics and melody interplay and help arrive at the other when writing in a more solo setting, but there were times the lyrics were coming after the full idea for a verse or chorus had taken shape. Not to mention, bringing in more heads and musical backgrounds initially lead to a multitude of songs and sounds. At a certain point, I think we were just throwing things at the wall to see what stuck. But it took going through all of that and learning what worked and what didn’t to ultimately find the sound we were looking for.

How did going so far outside your comfort zone ultimately change you and your songwriting style?

Opening up to a more collaborative experience involves a lot of give and take. Often times, you have to really sit back and listen to another band mate’s idea through and through and really trust that they have a vision and ultimate goal that we’re all collectively trying to achieve. That’s one of the most important things to keep in mind throughout: that we’re all in this together working for the same common goal. It’s a much more humbling experience and really takes destroying the self to an extent and checking your ego at the door. Writing music is it’s own language and a lot like a conversation in that sense. So often, we’re just thinking of the next thing we want to say when we could likely learn more from listening instead. Collectively, I think it’s only made us closer and tighter as a unit.

As a unit, what has your perspective evolved into?

I think for the most part, our overall outlook as a band hasn’t changed all that much. Maybe if anything, when we first started playing and touring, we were a little naïve on a lot of aspects of what it means to try to play music full-time and perhaps overly eager in a sense to get out there and make a name for ourselves. I think that same excitement still exists but with the understanding that it all takes time. We’ve had a lot of amazing experiences and incredible opportunities, but at the end of the day, we’re still just a band trying to get by. It’s such a fickle business, and we realize there’s always a chance we won’t get to experience these opportunities again. With that in mind, I think we just try our best to make the most of every occasion and not take anything for granted. Playing music and touring is so damn fun and fulfilling, and it’s worth celebrating that we get to do what we love. Ultimately, we’re just trying to grow as both people and musicians and hopefully get a little better at both everyday.

Through writing this album, do you think you’ve figured out anything about adulthood?

If there’s one ultimate mantra I personally subscribe to, it’s that I’m not sure we can ever really know anything for certain. Growing up is an interesting experience and one that everyone obviously experiences in different ways. There’s this societal definition that we’re all working towards of what it means to be an “adult.” You’re taking responsibility and control of your life, working, paying your bills on time, etc. I think what I find most fascinating about adulthood is, in the grand scheme of things, no one knows what they’re doing. There’s no commemoration ceremony that you reach a certain age and all of a sudden you have all the answers. Growing up, you look up to these adults and think they have everything figured out and that one day you will too, only to find that realistically everyone’s just doing their best to get by.

What is the toughest thing about getting older?

I would imagine the answer constantly varies with age. Currently, I think it’s just attempting to navigate all the changes. That’s always been the case to a degree, but growing up, you have a certain path laid out for you and hopefully a support system to help make informed decisions and fall back on if need be. As you continue to grow, you learn there’s no real handbook to this. There’s no set of guidelines that tells you what to do and how to maneuver every scenario that life throws at you. It helps to take it one day at a time.

With a standout called “Hold on to Your Love,” a stunningly raw, acoustic ballad, you really dig into the anguish of trying to hold on to another person’s affection. What is the backstory here?

Without going too far into the personal details, “Hold on to Your Love” comes from a place of doing everything in your power to try to salvage what’s left of something when you know deep down in your heart of hearts that it’s not meant to be. It’s that last gasp for air when you can feel the water filling the lungs. A friend once said something along the lines of “one of the saddest aspects of the human condition is that you can love another with your whole heart and they may never feel the same,” and it’s stuck with me ever since. When I was younger, I remember not being able to understand why people allowed themselves to fall out of relationships and friendships.

To me, it always seemed like it was worth fighting for. That being said, now I see there’s a certain wisdom knowing when to hold on and when it’s time to let go. People grow up, their experiences and viewpoints change, they think differently for better or worse, and at a certain point, it no longer is worth the emotional toll of trying to fit pieces together that aren’t meant to be. There’s still the child in me that hopes that I’m wrong, but I think at this stage in life it’s just a natural occurrence, unfortunately. There are people that are no longer in my life that I still love and wish nothing but the best for, but there’s a certain acceptance that comes from moving forward. At the end of the day, you still have the memories and carry with you everyone who helped shape the person you are and changed you for the better, and that, at the very least, is worth holding on to, in my opinion.

“Better Days” turns things around to inject the album with some hope, especially mirrored in the production’s bounce. Even in the lyrics, you speak about “nursing these wings,” as a way to prepare to really soar. It also seemingly serves as an acceptance that there are always going to be bad times in life. Was that a hard lesson to learn? What led to writing this song?

This is another example of a song rooted in that same fascination with nostalgia. It’s a reflection of looking backwards at the past while simultaneously looking towards the future. The title itself carries somewhat of a double meaning in dwelling on the “better days” of yesteryear while also looking forward to those yet to come. Lyrically, a lot of this song comes from summers spent in post-college Athens. It can be rather lazy place to be in the best sense possible. The students have all gone home for the summer and the town quiets down some. There’s a lot of porch hanging involved. Some of my absolute fondest memories come from those times, and I guess at its core the song is ultimately a reflection of that. Placing roots in a college town like Athens is great for making music, but you see a lot of your friends from over the years move away and move on to bigger and better things. Every summer is different in that sense, and I think deep down you realize that each is its own unique entity. There will never be another exactly like it with the same crew. I’m not sure it’s “bad” or “sad” so much as it really gives an appreciation to soak it all up while you still can and not take any of it for granted.

On the opener, “Ouroboros,” you cement the album’s themes with the lyric “we’re not getting any younger.” Did you have that moment when you thought “oh, shit, I really am getting old”?

As mentioned before, living in a college town I think really highlights the passing of time. Every year, a new wave of students comes and goes. It’s a constant reminder that makes it all the more tangible and concrete. Even just thinking in terms of the average life cycle of a band, I think there’s always this ticking clock in the back of your head knowing that realistically you only have a finite amount to achieve everything you’ve set out to accomplish and that this opportunity won’t last forever. Taking as much time as we did to write this album, there were times when the impulse was there to just tie a knot on it and let it go. You get so caught up in the details that I think it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. I think it’s only natural when you’re young, you generally have an invincible mentality and are more or less naïve to how delicate everything is. The older you get, the more you can feel that window closing and the greater appreciation for each passing second you have.

What things make you feel truly alive?

All the same things as anyone else. Being in good company. Experiencing new things. Falling in love. Traveling. Pushing comfort levels. Doing anything that makes you afraid and cause growth rather than idly allow life to pass you by.  

What are some other important moments on the record for you?

For me, the culmination of “So Within // So Without” is a moment I’m really proud of the way it turned out. Sometimes, I’ll lyrically attempt to paint a picture of a time and space rather than a coherent or necessarily linear thought pattern. The lyrics kind of flowed out more or less effortlessly, and I think maybe are a subconscious ode to a favorite movie of mine, ‘Blue Valentine.’ It’s a pretty haunting and heartbreaking depiction of the deterioration of a relationship and the fight to salvage what is known deep down to be already lost. It’s always been interesting to me how intertwined emotions can be ⎯⎯ how you can love to the point of anger at your own inadequacies. There are times I’ve wanted so badly to be there for someone or to help and am unable to do so for whatever reason that the sentiment shifts to fury at the feeling of complete and utter helplessness. Ultimately, the sensation is rooted in love, but it’s a different side of love than we’re normally accustomed to seeing. It’s a love that wants so desperately to be there but doesn’t necessarily know how. The song is more or less rooted in that feeling.

On that note, there’s a line in the final track “Houndstooth” that says, “You can spend your whole life searching for something you may never find.” To me, that’s another important moment on the album. That line essentially sums up everything that ‘Felix Culpa’ encompasses.

Do you feel that by unloading some of the heavy emotions on this record you were able to better understand yourself and each other?

I find that writing always tends to be a soul-searching process whether intentionally or not. You tend to discover and unveil emotions and ideas that you didn’t realize existed inside you until they spill out onto the page. From the band perspective, even though some of the lyrics stem directly from personal accounts, all of us were simultaneously going through similar experiences that without a doubt bled into the album and helped to shape it. It helps having others to lean on and talk to that are also navigating the same life situations. I think the album helped us to continue to pursue open and honest communication with both ourselves and each other and continue to grow together.

Musically, what things did you experiment with before arriving on the sound and tone present on this record?

When we set off to write this album, we initially created a mood board of sorts. It had different vibes we were hoping to achieve as well as a list of an assortment of bands that inspired us. As a result, the initial demos were kind of all over the place. On one end of the spectrum, we had these folk-inspired songs. On the other end, we had this completely different dance-pop vibe going. At a certain point, I think we took a step back to listen through everything we had been writing and realized we were trying too hard wasting energy chasing someone else’s sounds when we really needed to just be ourselves and rely on our natural instincts. It took a long time, but eventually we settled somewhere in the middle and stopped worrying about what we felt it needed to sound like and concerned ourselves more with what the song itself required. Even now, I’m not sure we fully know what our “sound” necessarily is. I think there’s a lot more untapped creativity and uncharted possibilities to explore, and we’re all stoked to continue to see what comes of it.

Photo credit: Chelsea Kornse

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