You might remember Save the Clocktower from a BestNewBands.com feature several months ago reviewing their album Carousel. Or you might remember the name from Back to the Future. Either way, they’re a Chicago-based band worth remembering for a rainy day or otherwise. I spoke to all three members on the phone last week, and we managed to keep our conversation just under the level of raucous cacophony as they provided thoughtful and often hilarious answers to my questions. Read on to find out more about their frequent genre-bending, past and future recording techniques, and their thoughts on the music industry’s game-changers. Be sure to sample the two tracks “They” and “You Got Me” via the Soundcloud links below, and don’t miss the music video by 80′s idol Robert Palmer that the trio finds inspirational!

Laurel Kathleen: You have a show this weekend at Beat Kitchen and then you’re making your Madison, Wisconsin debut on the 17^th. Do you have anything special planned for either show?

Greg Newton: For both of these shows, I think we’re going to do similar sets: it’ll be the same bank of songs, but maybe change the order. I think what we always try to do is just try to play the best songs that fit together well. For this set in particular, it starts out really big, then goes psychedelic, then gets upbeat.

Jimmy Shenk: I’m going to chime in too: when we first started playing a lot of shows, we had these promoters put people on these bills who were really good, DJs that were really famous but hip hop DJs and dubstep DJs, which I don’t know why they thought to throw us on the bill. This was in the beginning, when we were trying to tailor our sets to audiences we were playing for, so we were playing a lot of our electronic sets. Recently we decided to say “screw it” and just play our best stuff. I think the set now is really strong. We’ve been writing a lot of new stuff: with Carousel we kind of dial those songs in live really well.

You Got Me-Save the Clocktower by Laurel Kathleen

They-Save the Clocktower by Laurel Kathleen

LK: I read on your Facebook page that you’re already working on the next album. Any teasers about themes or production techniques?

Sean Paras: It’s different where we’re still doing a lot fo the recording and production on our own, but for mixing and additional recording we’ll be going to another studio in Chicago. The main difference is from a technical stand point: Carousel was procuced on Ableton Live. This next album will be Pro Tools.

Greg Newton: But also thematically and musically, it’s still in the works. But it’s taking a bit of a different direction: it’s more soulful, a little more upbeat and active. A little bit more of an edge.

Jimmy Shenk: I think it’s the best thing we’ve done: I’m kind of jumping out of my seat when I think about it. It’s pretty “next level” as far as what we’ve done. I like the fact that we’ve evolve slightly. We have ten tracks, not finalized but everything is laid out in our heads. We’re constantly adding, editing, recording, re-recording. But what we have now is pretty awesome…and I think that Chris Brown could do a dance off for these songs. But I’m not a fan of his.

photo courtesy of Brendan Shanley

LK: What’s one thing that Save the Clocktower has or does to make you stand out from other bands in Chicago?

JS: Good question. For me personally, I don’t know what genre we are. It’s hard to describe what we do, because I don’t know what it is. It’s a little bit of a lot of stuff. But I think we’re really different from other bands in Chicago: we can play with a lots of different types of bands which is fun for us.

GN: Yeah I mean, what people have said before is that engineers have told us “people came up and asked if we’re from the west coast”. I think it’s because we have a huge mash-up of influences, and a lot of Chicago bands don’t have as many layers or use as many effects as we do on our tracks. We just have a bigger and dreamier sound.

JS: Loyal Divide is a really cool band, but they’re a bit heavier than us I think. Their live show in particular: they do some hard rock stuff that we don’t get into. Hearing their latest album, they got into a mash-up of electronic and songwriting. They’re a bit more intense, which is cool.

LK: Who do you think are the “game-changers” right now in your own genre or otherwise?

JS: Uhh. That’s a good question. We really like this kid out of Chicago named Curtis Evans, he’s a really cool dude and he’s a folk musician. I don’t know, I hope that he would be a game changer. He’s a great guy. As far as who’s breaking ground in music…well I mean I’m going to be really lame and say Lady Gaga. But she’s doing her own thing. That’s not something I would go into my car and listen to, but I guess it’s something to mention. I listen to a lot of old stuff.

GN: I know Sean and I -and even Jimmy as well- we’ve all seen Radiohead a few times. As an example, a band that’s constantly progressing and changing from album to album. There are plenty of bands out there.

JS: There’s this band called Empire of the Sun from Australia that came out with a record that kind of blew the faces off of people. I saw them at Lolla, and it was this kind of psychedelic Prince concert. There’s just the one guy now: it was originally two guys and one kind of went AWOL. They were on to something, and they’re really cool. They do funky electronic, and great songwriting. I mean, I know we don’t really listen to Katy Perry. The most #1’s on an album since Thriller…that kind of amazes me. I listen to a lot of older stuff. I hope there are a lot of game changers. Who knows what will happen, or where it will go?

photo courtesy of Lauren Hermann

LK: Who are the game-changers in Chicago right now?

JS: The Sea and Cake, they’re kind of legend. Eleventh Dream Day is kind of an underground band that not many people give props to. White Mystery is this brother and sister duo, and we met Alex White at a party and she is a really cool chick. She’s like straight out of 1973; she’s awesome. There’s this band called Cealed Kasket: they’re kind of KISS meets Motley Crue meets Parliament Funkadelic.

LK: What’s one thing that you’d change about the current music industry?

SP: Ohhh I don’t know. For us, we do it all. Everything we do we don’t really get too much assistance from management companies, or PR companies. We do everything on our own.

JS: I don’t know, are people open minded to work with a lot of artists? I know the economy is really struggling so it’s a “who can get to the finish line first?” situation and it also doesn’t hurt if some sweet PR company wants to put you on you roster. I wish we had more PR companies who loved us. We work really hard, we practice all the time, and sometimes you run into people who aren’t always as hard working and they’ll take awhile to get back to you….maybe if people had a little bit more urgency because of the state of the music industry. But we work really hard, and that’s something that we really pride ourselves on. And the three of us have been really close friends for the last twenty years and we’re very passionate so it almost becomes an obsession. We want it, and we really like to do this. I’m really itching to get on the road. We’ve done some traveling, but being able to come out to LA is one of our goals. Being able to travel around in general.

LK: Who are your dream tour mates?

JS: Somebody who’s not an arrogant jerk. A band that’s kind of worked their way up and is humble, someone not put together by a producer or something. Someone like us who has had to work for it, so they’re still down to earth. They haven’t lost their sense of reality. Also someone who’s not going to drink all the free beer that the venue gave us. A ton of people: for Guns N’ Roses to reunite and go on tour and see what happened. It wouldn’t be very fun, but it’d be cool. I just want to go on tour and whoever wants to come with can just have fun, smile, and promote the hell out of the show. Like if we went out with the Bryan Jonestown Massacre.

LK: Any closing remarks?

JS: This third record… it could be pretty big. So watch out world! That’s my new t-shirt line.

Save the Clocktower‘s latest album Carousel is now available for listen and purchase on their Bandcamp page. If you’re in the Madison area of Wisconsin, you can catch them live at The Sett on September 17th or at The Whistler in their hometown of Chicago on October 13th. For more information on their upcoming releases and tour dates, please follow Save the Clocktower on Facebook or Twitter.

Photo courtesy of Jacob S Knabb