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A lot of the songs have things that are maybe sad or uncomfortable or dark in some ways, but that’s why you play it out, to kind of work through it. Schneider: Yeah, I guess that’s just part of the art of making music. So how do you do that? Is there any sort of purposeful reconciliation between the content of the songs and how you appear onstage, or is it just that this is what’s in the songs, and you like playing music, and it comes out like that? A lot of bands seem like they’re afraid to do that it’s not really cool to look like you’re having fun. But then when you play, you’re all just having an absolute blast. You’ve got “Lonesome Dreams,” and then “Ghost on the Shore,” or “I’ll Be Back,” or “Time to Run.” There’s this very transitory and … I don’t want to say sad, necessarily, but kind of a sad-seeming quality to the music. SP: One of the things that struck me about the band when I saw you at Pygmalion was that you have this haunted quality to the music. And he’s the guy who helps us write this album. I don’t really have a good reason for why he is, but he is. It’s just something that helps me get into the spirit of writing and get into the world. Schneider: Well, George Ranger Johnson is a sadly unappreciated author of adventure fiction whose novels are based upon … yeah. Who is he? And more importantly, why is he? SP: In relation to the mysterious nature of the whole thing, you’ve created this character, George Ranger Johnson. But hopefully that kind of creates a mysterious nonspace that you can inhabit. I think the sound might be obscure and hazy because there are so many places I’m thinking of and referencing. Every place we’ve been and every place I’ve lived has influenced me in some way or imparted something on me. now, but being a Midwesterner originally?īen Schneider: I guess that’s part of it, a sense of obscure space is something I try to strive for in the music that we make. Smile Politely: I was listening to the album earlier today and it’s sort of like you combine these American folk elements with all these world music sounds, as well as this musical and narrative sense of dislocation that comes with that. So far, such expansion has yielded some fascinatingly deep sounds, as he synthesizes his diverse interests (except for maybe the Wu Tang Clan, who impressed Schneider early in his journey) into a cohesive musical whole. Guided by a fictional author of adventure fiction named George Ranger Johnson, for whom Lord Huron even hosts a website, Schneider has been pursuing his muses in every direction. Born and raised in Michigan, Schneider moved west to pursue visual art, but sidetracked himself into Lord Huron’s current success. I caught up with Schneider recently by phone, and what followed was a look into the mind of a consummate artist. Schneider is a soft-spoken and deeply nice individual who writes, at times, inscrutable music, where East Asian melodies coexist peacefully with a deep understanding of the American singer-songwriter tradition, as well as some oddball samples that float by nearly unnoticed, lending textural support to the nearly soundtrack-like soundscapes on Lord Huron’s records. We recently spoke with Ben Schneider, who started the band as a solo recording project, then built a band of childhood friends around those recordings as the show offers came in. Los Angeles’ Lord Huron, who appeared at Pygmalion Music Festival 2012, are returning Wednesday to the Highdive for a show presented by Pygmalion and WPCD.
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