Los Angeles – Until recently, Never Shout Never has always essentially stood as the moniker for Joplin, MO singer-songwriter Christofer Drew. After several albums written only by Drew and supported in a live setting with a hired-gun touring band, Never Shout Never has become a full-fledged band with a solidified lineup.
Instead of writing and recording the album by his lonesome, Drew called on his Never Shout Never band mates to write and record the songs that would eventually become the band’s fifth LP of original tracks, Black Cat. Because of this merging of artistic ideas and influences, the band’s leader has stated that the album is their first “fully realized” work as a band. Instead of quickly putting the album together, Drew and Co. took a more methodical approach to making an album.
“Yeah, [the recording process] was a lot different,” said Drew over the phone in an interview with Best New Bands. “We took a lot more time than usual. Back in the day, we used to do records in like three weeks, or two months at the most. And this one was recorded for six months and we did pre-production before that for a couple months and writing for two months…So yeah, it was a long process. And you know it was not really what I was used to but I think it paid off and came out as something very full, with complete ideas.”
The result is an album that is equal parts straightforward pop and slightly off-kilter indie rock. All in all, the result is that Black Cat is some of the band’s most straightforwardly poppy tracks to date. As far as whether it was intentional for the band to infuse the album with even more pop-driven elements and forgo some of the heartfelt emo of its predecessors, Drew said that for the most part it was.
“It is definitely something that we wanted to do, we hadn’t ever tried to make a really contemporary pop and – it’s still not a completely contemporary pop record – we were definitely open to using new elements and making something that sounded more modern than what we’ve usually done.
As Drew mentioned above, there are a few times the band strays from its newfound modern pop template on Black Cat, but for the most part it is made up of infectious, radio-ready pop rock nuggets. Songs like “Hey! We Okay” and “Fone Tag” don’t try to posture with half-hearted nods to the band’s past sound; instead they run headlong into sing-along choruses.
Black Cat is also notable for its eye-catching artwork, featuring rainbows, a three-eyed cat, and a two-tone checkerboard background. Like most things related to Never Shout Never, the artwork came from the mind of Drew.
“The album cover actually came from…I kind of like saw it in a dream. It was really inspired by Dark Side of the Moon’s album cover – the triangle, and the prism, and the rainbow. And you know I just saw a cat shooting rainbows in a dream, pretty vaguely and then I woke up and I was like, ‘huh, maybe I’ll try to work with that.’ We were working with this guy Donnie from Warner [Brothers Records], went back and forth every couple weeks…until it got to the point that I thought it looked really cool.”
The band spent the summer performing on the Warped Tour, their third trip on the traveling punk rock circus. As always, the tour proved to be a grueling but exhilarating experience for the band as they performed songs from all of their full-length releases, including Black Cat. Now that the big tour is over and their latest album is in the books, 2015 looks to be a time of semi-recuperation for Never Shout Never.
“Pretty much just relaxing when we can; we are working on a lot of creative stuff for the album. You know, making music videos and stuff. I think we are going to try to do all the music videos in one shot. Just kind of like fun, creative one shot videos. So we are going to do that, and also just keep writing – I’ve got like a solo EP kind of record, I’ve got like seven songs…I was thinking at the end of this year. That will be kind of more alt-y, indie-folk kind of vibe, a lot of live stuff, lo-fi sort of vibe.”
Keep an eye on any new videos or tour dates by checking out Never Shout Never ’s website.
Photo of Never Shout Never by Frank Maddocks
Matt Matasci
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