DJ Wednesday from KSPC 88.7FM invited both Love Spirals Downwards’ Ryan and Suzanne, and Trance to Sun’s Ashekelon and Zoe to the station in Claremont to promote some shows the bands are doing in Los Angeles and Seattle.
TRANSCRIPT:
Ryan: Suzanne and I are in Love Spirals Downwards, which was just played.
Margaret: Right. I spoke to you earlier today and you said that [“Will You Fade”] was, like, one of your favorite tracks … the record. Why is that?
Suzanne: Yeah, it’s one of Ryan’s favorites.
Ryan: Oh, it’s not one of yours?
Suzanne: Well…
Ryan: Margaret said she thought I highlighted your vocals very well on that song. I just thought it was it was the most interesting textural kind of song I made on the album. Well, one of them.
Suzanne: Well I don’t know what my favorite is. It’s hard because I have different favorites at different times. But Ryan you do seem to especially dig that song.
Ryan: I do.
Margaret: He digs it.
Suzanne: He doesn’t know why. You ask him the question “why” anything and he just doesn’t know .
Ryan: What does that mean?!
Margaret: He’s a philosophy major, right?
Ryan: I was.
Margaret: So he can get away with it, right there, and she majored in Psychology, right Suzanne? So you’re like, “but why, but why?”
Ryan: That’s why she wants to know “why” for everything!
Margaret: “Is it your ID talking,” you know?
Suzanne: (sarcastically) Yeah —oh ho— yeah, I have a really strong ID.
Ashkelon: That that’s why she has a different favorite song every day of the week, because she’s schizophrenic.
Ryan: That’s why she majored in Psychology: to figure out how to help.
Margaret: I was going to major in Psychology but I’m too screwed up for it — or is that the requirement?
Ryan: you’re perfect.
Suzanne: Well, actually that’s not what… actually I was a Marine Biology major and I couldn’t do the math, so I ended up — I don’t know how I ended up in Psychology — but that’s where I ended up.
Ryan: And then she had an ugly accident with a porpoise one time too. It altered her academic career.
Zoe: What happened with a porpoise?
Ryan: I don’t know if you can see it on the air, but… it’s kinda weird.
Suzanne: You know, there’s something funny about… do you know that… Oh, who were we talking to about with porpoises? Porpoises are really sexual.
Ryan: I don’t remember anything about a porpoise.
Suzanne: And they like to nudge people in certain places.
Ashkelon: Okay. Now this I know this room is cramped, Suzanne, but let’s not get any ideas. Okay?
Margaret: There’s, like, four people in there, and she’s talking about sexual porpoises.
Suzanne: You guys are looking like porpoises.
Margaret: All I can say here is that I’m not in that room. Thank you. I’m by myself.
Margaret: Since we got Ryan’s favorite — well one of his favorite — tracks off Ardor (since that’s the latest release), I’m just going to kind of stick with that: what is your favorite track Suzanne?
Suzanne: Uh… Oh gosh!
Ryan: Say someone put a gun to your head and said, ‘Pick one!”
Suzanne: It’s “Subsequently.” That’s my favorite.
Margaret: What track number is that?
Ryan: It’s on the back of the CD.
Margaret: You guys don’t even know?
Ryan: I think it’s number five.
Ashkelon : Who puts the songs in order on your discs?!
Ryan: I do, but I have brain damage, so I forget.
Suzanne: That’s my favorite. That’s definitely my favorite.
Margaret: Oh it’s number 6.
Ryan: OK, I was close.
Margaret: But, anyways, you guys are playing next Thursday with Faith and Disease at the Troubadour.
Suzanne: And with Trance to the Sun.
Margaret: Well, yeah. All of you. Both bands. Yes. All of you are. Altogether. It’s like one big family. Now how did that work out?
Ashkelon: We did it in Seattle, and we’re like, oh, let’s do it in LA too.
Suzanne: We both played with Faith and Disease. You guys you guys played in Seattle once, and then we did also.
Ashkelon: It was the same show, Suzanne.
Suzanne: Oh, that’s right.
Ashkelon: We all played together.
Suzanne: I black out shows, Margaret. It’s terrible.
Margaret: Alrighty. I’m scared over here.
Suzanne: Did you say we were playing at The Troubadour? We’re playing tomorrow, too, did you know Margaret?
Ryan: Not tomorrow,
Margaret: Saturday.
Ryan: It’s a little thing, like a little intimate kind of deal.
Margaret: At Dark’s Art Parlor in Santa Ana. I was going to ask what do you guys do in the group and stuff but it’s obvious the girls both sing.
Suzanne: You know I do play an occasional tambourine or bell or egg.
Margaret: So she’s a slight percussionist, if you will
Ryan: Yeah. She played a rain stick on a song or two.
Margret: Oh, Susan, Susan and Peter said they’re listening and they said hello.
Zoe: Oh, hi, Susan. Hi, Peter. Hi, Susan and Peter.
Ashkelon: Who are you guys talking about?
Ryan: Tiger.
Zoe: Susan and Peter. Hi.
Suzanne: Susan Jennings does all the photography.
Margaret: She’s a photo wizard.
Suzanne: She’s a very talented artist.
Ryan: And Tiger, he’s my friend and we play chess a lot. And he always beats me.
Margaret: So he’s the chess master. She’s the photo wizard. Yes. She does excellent photography. What records, she did both records for you guys?
Ryan: She did the inside artwork for Ardor and she’s done, like, countless Projekt covers.
Margaret: She had said that she had a weird bizarre dream and wanted to inquire, I guess, on some porpoise or something, and I don’t know. She was commenting on Suzanne’s discussion on porpoises and sex or something.
Suzanne: Well, they think dolphins, people think of dolphins as very sweet, intelligent animals, but supposedly, they’re very horny in the wild.
Margaret: Jesus.
Ryan: We’re back on that again? This is probably the last segue and I don’t wanna talk about dolphins and sexuality.
Margaret: Somehow we can’t escape this conversation about dolphins. OK, Let’s just drop it.
Ashkelon: Let’s talk about how Suzanne got out of the car and and was threatening to beat up this guy who flipped us off on the road for…
Zoe: Wait. That was cool. That was awesome. Well, this guy… this guy, like, started honking at us because we were trying to make a right on a on a red light, and he was, like, totally honking at us. And so, like, Ryan totally screamed at him, and started freaking out. So then Suzanne got out of the car and started, like… What were you doing?
Ryan: She tried to open up his back door.
Zoe: She was like trying to open his door. Totally freaking him out.
Suzanne: I was gonna get in with him. And then I thought “why?” but luckily his door was locked, so I couldn’t get in. And then I looked at his license plate. I was just trying to intimidate him.
Ashkelon: And then —if you’re out there listening right now, there there’s a cursed back mask that’s gonna be on the next album of ours that’s gonna, like, mess you up.
Suzanne: Yeah. You have to… SPS2SPO…
Zoe: Oh my god. 2S2SOR, wasn’t it?
Ashkelon: Yeah. It was 2SOR900.
Ryan: Yeah try to find him for us.
Ashkelon: If you see the… if you’re, like, driving behind this guy right now, run him off the road. And we’ll give you some tickets.
Margaret: We can’t incite to kill here. We’re a nonprofit station.
Ashkelon: Oh.
Margaret: You can’t do that.
Ashkelon: Okay. I’m sorry. I — I — I recall the statement.
Suzanne: You guys were, like, all, like, ready to, like, kill. Kill. Kill.
Ryan: We got lost finding the place. It’s like we went to the wrong building. We thought it was it. I was like, “Okay. We’re gonna have a good radio interview. It’s gonna be fun.” And it was, like, Spinal Tap, when they were lost backstage in Philadelphia. It was cool.
Margaret: Great. We’re getting on the Spinal Tap discussion.
Ryan: When we walked down the hallway, once we got to the building here, you said “just walk right down the stairs and it’d be there,” but we went down the hallway and…What? What, Suzanne?
Suzanne: Okay. I’m giving you my signal.
Ryan: You can talk about dolphin sex and I can’t talk about a Spinal Tap moment?
Zoe: I think you should play another song by Scarlett.
Margaret: Someone called in and wanted to know kind of literature and poetry and whatnot do you guys like to read?
Suzanne: Oh boy! Well, I don’t I… I don’t really have a favorite. I I’m not a “favorites” type person where I have, you know, favorite things stand out. Um… Right now I’m reading Zola’s Nana and one of my favorite books is The Red and the Black by Stendhal. So those are some of my favorite books.
Margaret: So you’re really smart.
Suzanne: No, no actually I’m not.
Margaret: So I shouldn’t talk to you.
Ryan: Actually if you saw her GRE scores you might not tend to think that.
Suzanne: Hey!
Ryan: Just kidding, okay? I’m sorry. Being an ex-philosophy major I usually read a lot of academic Western philosophy stuff — nothing too weird — but actually right now I’ve been reading… The latest book I read was Psychedelic Shamanism, seriously, and then also I’ve been reading a lot on stocks and the financial market lately.
Ashkelon: What was that book I saw on your coffee table, though?
Ryan: Oh yeah, Sam from Project lent me a book written in 1948…
Suzanne: Sophisticated Sex Techniques.
Ashkelon: For married couples.
Ryan: I haven’t started reading that yet, I don’t know why. I’m going to start that one soon.
Suzanne: But we don’t use a lot of books or poetry in doing music.
Ryan: Yeah we’re not the heavy literature type, but we do read a lot just not, like, um…
Margaret: It just doesn’tincorporate into your music?
Suzanne: Yeah, right.
Margaret: Isn’t it, like, the same thing? If you were to write poetry, wouldn’t music be the equivalent to that?
Ryan: We’re not good poets, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re much better at songwriting.
Suzanne: No, to me it’s very separate. I mean, writing poetry or writing prose — literature and that — is completely separate from music. I mean, I think that’s why a lot of times we use nonsensical syllables and just whatever sounds good ‘cause it’s more for… I guess it’s about not music but it’s about sound, you know? Really for us it’s about sounding — I don’t know — beautiful or whatever we want it to sound like.
Margaret: Is that the cue that Elizabeth Fraser takes when people ask her that question? I would think that would be the case in um she really doesn’t even sing real words, I mean on the last couple records she’s attempted to do so, but on the earlier stuff on all the earlier Twins records it’s all non-words.
Suzanne: Well unfortunately now that she’s started using words I mean we find out, “Oh I was molested as a child, oh no.” I mean, it’s just for me, it’s been a bit disappointing.
Margaret: So it’s like, “I really don’t want to know that?” or something?
Suzanne: At least, for me. It’s too specific.
Margaret: What about you, Ryan and Suzanne, do you have any plans to go into the studio?
Ryan: We’re working on stuff now. We have maybe almost half of a new record done, kind of, sort of.
Suzanne: Maybe a third?
Ryan: Somewhere in there, yeah. I don’t want to dispute a little point like that. But yeah, we’re working. We’ll have something done maybe in spring?
Suzanne: Yeah, we’ll see… We have a studio at home so it’s easy for us to kind of , you know, like Trance does, as well.
Ashkelon: I can’t see how this music could be recorded without a studio at your house! You have to have that kind of availability and the time. You have to be able to work on it 700 hours to make your album. It’s essential.
Margaret: Not that it’s required to say yes or no, but are there going to be any major musical direction changes? With Love Spirals Downwards records, I don’t think the first one sounds anything like the second one. I just get a different feel from the first record to the second one. I don’t know, just the vibe is totally different.
Suzanne: Yeah, I mean maybe because, you know, we make them at different points in our life. But there’s no intentional, I don’t know, there’s no intentional difference, something that we plan… it’s just whatever kind of comes from us at the time.
Ryan: I always get new equipment, too, so that always changes things.
Suzanne: Margaret, when this is over, can we be friends?
Margaret: We’re gonna be pals, man. We’re gonna hang out. We’re gonna go to the sandbox. She’s gonna be my therapist now. She could teach me how to sing too.