Interview: Glass Mansions weed out merciless toxicity with new EP, ‘Ritual’
One bandmate discusses personal evolution, rituals and new-found confidence.
Kelly Clarkson took sharpened sheers to her metaphorical front lawn with iconic single “Sober,” in which she compares toxic people and things to weeds that need untangled and removed from a bed of vibrant blossoms. “Three months and I’m still sober / Picked all my weeds but kept the flowers,” she sings, positioning the My December deep cut as a glossy, surefire oath of self-preservation. It’s a moment of clarity that comes in all of our lives, scattered points of revelatory knowledge, reaching a breaking point and choosing to severe ties that serve to destroy us rather than hold us up. South Carolina rock duo Glass Mansions ⎯⎯ Jayna Doyle and Blake Arambula ⎯⎯ hit that threshold awhile back, shedding a former shell and casting off toxicity like a tatter bomber jacket from a forlorn lover. “It’s been the most liberating thing we’ve ever done ⎯⎯ both as a band and individual people,” Doyle talks candidly to B-Sides & Badlands about that moment when things were so strained, they cut the beast off at the head.
“When you have toxic people in life, sometimes, most of the time, you’re too close to the situation to really understand how bad it is. Toxic people engulf you in a toxic rut, and that’s where we found ourselves for the past several years,” she continues. “Fear is a powerful and funny thing, but letting yourself let go and moving on is completely invaluable and more empowering than we’d realized.”
Liberation was an expected result, anchoring their new EP, and first as a duo, titled Ritual. From exploding “Landmines” to the raging sizzle of “Just Friends” to the warped elasticity of “Tunnel Vision,” the meager, 5-song record is a shock of magnetic heroism, bending genres with fervent charm. “Flipping the foundation of things with deep, overdue change really alters your view of things. Everything around me is still the same, but I, as well as Blake, feel sort of brand new,” Doyle expresses, noting how such a drastic personal change shifted not only their perceptions but artistic endeavors. “I’ve always been a fan of clean slates and fresh starts and have even made a ‘ritual’ of them in our mini chapters as a band ⎯⎯ but letting go of past toxic bandmates and members of our team that we thought we could trust definitely wakes you up to the notion that the only limitations we have are ones we enable.”
Turning a new leaf directly feeds into their focus, present throughout each of Ritual‘s rapid breaths. With only two members these days, their energy is reinvigorated and narrows in on a tighter sonic template. “Blake and I have always been the sole songwriters. We started making music together and formed a band, but then did our first album together as a two piece with studio players before we started playing out…having gone through so many band members in the mean time — and some really great, talented musicians we are still very close with ⎯⎯ it makes so much sense for us to have gone full circle back to being a two piece,” Doyle explains. “We realized how much a drummer’s style could affect our sound, and when we started writing with electronic drums in mind, we had the epiphany that the typical idea of a band being singer-guitar-bass-drums is not set in stone anywhere. It’s 2018, and any type of set up is truly possible these days. That realization in and of itself has been hugely exciting for us in the creative process.”
The breakup not only re-upped their creative capacity but was a rather stunningly cathartic march into a new stage of adulthood, one with no-fucks given and a healthier reliance on trust and companionship. That notion splatters onto their songwriting, too. “On our newest EP, it was the first time that we started writing solely as a two piece without any other player in mind…meaning, sometimes, we’ve written songs that were truly done and didn’t need more but we had bandmates that couldn’t just stand there so some parts have been thrown in as afterthoughts on previous recordings. Being able to cut that fat and keep the songs truer to their intended form has been both equally fulfilling and scary, in that we are way more vulnerable as songwriters now.”
Below, Doyle discusses essential new tracks, their scruffy electro-rock approach, rituals and animalistic textures.
How have your live shows changed out of the shift from a group to a duo?
Well now that we threw the typical band setup out the window, we wanted to incorporate new elements into our live show. Insert electronic drumpad here. It’s been really fun for me to play these little drum solos and get to rock out in our harder breakdowns by expressing myself through something other than my voice or dancing around. With less people on stage now, I do find it much easier to step into my role as a front-person, which is not something I had anticipated. I’ve always been charismatic and sassy and filled that role, but I didn’t realize how much I’d been holding back by making room to share the spotlight with others, until I had the literal room onstage to embrace my role more wholeheartedly.
“If You Need Me, Don’t” has such a ravenous energy to it. Can you talk about how that song came together? What’s the story?
We love this song so much, and it was probably our most favorite one to record and execute. I wrote it with the intention that the listener would feel empowered by the lyrics and that it would create a I-can-tackle-anything / take-no-shit-do-no-harm personal revelation. The creation of this song was a turning point for us as a band. We’d demo-ed a very simple, instrumental version, and it got shelved for a few months in 2017, because none of our band mates believed in it. Blake and I knew a change was coming then and there, because we strongly believed in the potential of the song, and it made so much sense when we revisited it newly as a two piece, to let it tell the story of moving on from the toxicity that was holding both us and the song back. It’s essentially about standing firmly in your own and not letting someone else try to steer you away from your vision, potential or essentially, yourself.
This electronic-rock-pop hybrid of yours is unlike most of what is polluting mainstream music. Do you think that musical risk could alienate fans of those single genres?
Maybe? It’s been both a blessing and a curse for us to walk this line that enables us to dip our toes in multiple genres and because of that, be welcomed by fans of all those genres. We aren’t chasing a specific sound to begin with, and ultimately, writing just feels natural to us given our own influences. But it is exciting to see artists like Bishop Briggs and Phantogram be more and more welcomed on the mainstream front, and I do think that that will continue to keep the door open for genre-blurring bands like ours.
What has been the biggest misconception about you and your music?
People that have listened to our recordings before seeing our live show are always coming up to us very surprised that we are more energetic than they’d expected and that our music tends to hit harder and heavier live. I’m always equally surprised, because it seems that polished recordings sometimes convince listeners that the performance is going to be very dry and structured and clean cut ⎯⎯ when our live show is anything but that. I’m so enamored by the soul and rawness of rock ‘n roll, and you can’t help but channel that element in a live setting which is something I don’t think you can truly capture in a recording.
The vocal distortion and slink of “Tunnel Vision” is so addicting. What is your typical process in making production decisions in what best serves the song?
“Tunnel Vision,” in particular, revolved heavily around textures. The synths and intro percussion are all very sleek and smooth ⎯⎯ so we wanted the vocals to be more exposed, raw and gritty in texture. This song has probably the darkest subject matter of the EP. I wanted the vocals to be distorted and robotic to really paint the sound of being stuck somewhere different than the other musical elements. The vocal layering tucked in the background of the verses and then again in the bridge was purposely sung more airy and smooth to serve as a “ghost” and a more haunting sound that never fully connects with the main vocal.
Do you have any rituals in your life and music?
Self care is so important to our well being and mental health. More recently, I’ve been practicing a ritual of writing down both things I need to let go and things I want to manifest and then burning the pieces of paper. Seeing on paper something you want to move on from literally disappear into ash really does wonders for mental closure. I actually have lots of little rituals that I practice daily, but I have to keep them to myself because I’m also very superstitious.
There is such a grittiness to the EP. It’s raw, almost animalistic in nature. Was that always the intention?
Yes and no. When we started writing the first few songs for the EP, we weren’t really sure what direction it would take. We knew that we were moving into a more electronic direction, and I’ve always been more attracted to distorted, bass-heavy synths than synths on the sleek ’80s-esque end of the spectrum. Recording-wise, we tried to capture the more raw, soulful aspect of our music that comes out more in our live show. Looking back now, I guess “Landmines” and “Just Friends,” and well, maybe the whole EP, do have an animalistic feel to them…which could be contributed to me embracing a more sensual energy I always watered down in the past.
The EP has been out for a minute. How does it make you feel now?
At first, it was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been for anything we’ve released, because this EP is so much closer to me, personally, than anything we’ve done in the past. I feel way more vulnerable, but now that it’s out, I do feel more confident in my own voice as an artist. It’s a mix of emotions ⎯⎯ I feel relieved and excited and defensive and proud, all at the same time with a clearer vision of where I’d like to go as an artist.
What would you say you learned about yourself and each other in this process?
I learned that trust is the most important thing. If you can’t trust your bandmate or your team, then you’re already doomed from the start. I learned to trust myself and my creative instincts more than I ever have in my entire life or career. I learned that it’s okay to try and to fail trying and to keep going, because at the end of the day, I’m still giving 100 percent of myself in an honest effort to create something that I think can make a difference, even if it’s just a small one.
Which song makes you feel the most alive when you perform it?
“72” is still an old school favorite of mine that will probably always be my favorite song to perform live ⎯⎯ for reasons I’ll probably never even understand why. Off the new EP, I would have to say that “Tunnel Vision” has really been a dark horse for us in our shows. We extend the bridge live, and there’s just something really magical about that song that people are connecting with that is really beautiful for us to be able to play a part in.
Where do you envision your sound going next?
It’s really hard to say. We had so much fun writing this new EP, and I think we’ve challenged ourselves as songwriters. We are already working on new music, and I can tell you that we’ve been exploring more vocal sampling and different ways to achieve percussion. We’ll always be in the electro-pop-rock world, but it is invigorating to be writing again in this new setup.
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