SubModern Session: Cheerleader

After their successful 2015 debut The Sunshine of Your Youth, Philadelphia’s Cheerleader seemed to disappear for quite some time.  Fortunately they’ve recently re-emerged with a great follow-up, Almost Forever, and I caught up with the band at guitarist Joshua Pannepacker‘s Thanks Mom Studio in Pennsauken, NJ to chat about it and for them to perform stripped down versions of some of its songs for a SubModern Session, which you can listen to in the player below.

I’m curious is the title Almost Forever because it feels like almost been forever since your first album?

Joe Haller [lead vocals / guitar]:
I don’t know that it was intentional, but we definitely did think of that after we had named it.

So after the first album came out, I know you guys were constantly touring for a while and it took a lot out of you.  Is that part of why this was so long in coming?
 
Yeah.  Being away from home for a while was a new thing for us and we all definitely got a little exhausted by it.  And then we took a little hiatus.

And the band changed a little bit?
Yeah.  We lost some members and gained some members.  Super solid line-up right now.  It took a while to write the record and kind of find a new sound.

I got the impression that there might’ve been a lot of stuff that you wrote, and there maybe could’ve been another album in there, but it didn’t work out for whatever reason?

Joe:
Yeah.  There was definitely a lot of material when we were paring down what songs we were gonna use.  There were probably like 25-30 songs or parts of songs that we had to choose from.

Paul Casper [bass]:
There were so many songs!  It was deciding which direction to take the record.

What was it that solidified, "Now we know where we’re headed with this?"

Joe:
I think after recording a couple songs, we found a sound that felt like we could pursue as an entire record.  I think "Flight Tonight" was one of the first ones that was recorded that we were like, "OK, this is kinds cool.  It’s like a different direction."

And appropriately, the first on on the record.

Joe:
But yeah, I think we just needed to hone in on a different sound and that can take some time.

I can identify that it is different than the first record, but I can’t quite formulate how I would describe the dofference.  So, what would you say?

Paul:
I’d say it’s a little psychedelic.  I feel like it’s more cohesive as an album than the first record.

Joshua Pannepacker [guitar]:
Like a body of work, rather than just songs.  I almost think the first one felt like single, single, single, but maybe written at different times.

Joe:
Yeah, the first one felt like a collection of songs to us, a little bit.  Here we were definitely trying to make a listening experience as an album. 

Joshua:
Pretty importantly too, when most of those songs were written, you didn’t know Paul or myself, or Carl (the drummer at the time). 

Joe:
That’s also true.

Joshua:
For this record we were a band.

Paul:
We were able to play to our strengths.

Joshua:
There’s more jammin’ dude!

Joe:
Yeah.  We got into jamming out a little bit I guess.  

And then I know that you went out to California to actually record the album with Chris Coady, who’s a pretty notable producer, who’s worked with Beach House and Foals, right?

Joe:
Yeah.  And Future Islands and Grizzly Bear. 

So that’s a pretty big deal.  How did you link up with him?

Joe:
We had some material and we sent it out to some different producers we were interested in working with to see if they would potentially be interested in working with us as well.  He was one of the people who got back to us.  We talked to him and really seemed to hit it off.  Luckily when we met in person, we really all got along and became pretty tight.  We were living together.

Joshua:
We recording in a house called Panoramic House.  It’s a recording studio slash home; kinda castle looking type home.  It was awesome.

Joe: 
It’s really unique and beautiful.

Joshua:
It’s funny when we first met everyone seemed on their best behavior or something.  And then after like day three or four, Chris realized we were just normal guys and we didn’t have like, too high of opinions of anything, so he was like, "can I wear my pajamas every day now?" and I was like "Yeah, do it.  Get comfy." 

Did you wear your pajamas in the studio?

Joe:
Yeah, we were definitely lounging.

Working with Chris, what’d he bring to the table that you wouldn’t have done or thought of on your own?

Joshua:
He was like, "Yo, this keyboard, right now."  And we were like, "What?  This is like from the 80s.  We don’t what’s going on."

Joe:
Yeah, he was really into analog, vintage synthesizers.  That was really cool for us because we didn’t know a whole lot about them going in.  That definitely colored the sound a lot on the record. 

You played for us the new single, "Things We Regret."  Where did that come along in the process?

Sean Donaghy [drums]:
It might not have been the last song that was written for the album, but it was kind of the last one to come together.  Up until the day, as we were recording it, it was still being worked out.  But I think it found its best form on there.   

You mentioned touring being a big grind on the first album and that led partially to taking so long with one.  So do you have tour plans this time around, because there’s nothing that’s been announced yet?

Sean:
We’ve been taking the time now, given how much it weighed on us before, to look for the right tours and things that work really well with the new album.  Obviously we know we have to grind.  It’s a new record and we want to get it to as many people as possible, but we’re trying to make the smart decision rather than the easy decision for this album and hopefully the touring lines up with that. 

You did go outside the area, to shoot some videos in Canada.  How’d that come about?

Paul:
Our manager Jon turned us on to these guys, Nick and Evan, in Toronto.  They were working on a music video with like a trash monster that was amazing.

Joe:
It was this really weird, kind of David Lynch bizarro video for Preoccupations.  

Paul:
So, we wound up reaching out to them and gave them pretty much creative control.  It worked out great!  First they did the "Bang, Bang" video and were like, "We can take this up another level with some other songs."  So we planned it all out, went up there, rented out some studios, and did two more music videos ["Chimera" and "Things We Regret"].  Actually "Bang, Bang" and "Chimera" got some Garden State Film Festival awards too. 

Check out those videos, as keep an eye out for Cheerleader’s tour plans at chrleader.com.  Almost Forever is available now on Bright Antenna Records.

By Josh T. Landow