In
2010,
when Larcenist lost one of their songwriters, guitarist Brandon
Mastrangelo
and the rest of his Boston-based band took some time to re-consider
their musical course.Sure, Mastrangelo and pianist Jonathan Schoek had also been writing songs for Larcenist since the band started, so the loss of this third songwriter didn't disable them. It did, however, disorient them. “Initially, for us, it was hard because it really put things on hold,” Mastrangelo explains. “We needed to decide what we were going to sound like, if it was going to change, and how we were going to move forward. We were a little stagnant for about three or four months and didn't quite know what the next step would be.”
When
Mastrangelo, Schoek, and drummer Jonathan Tompkins—the core trio
that started Larcenist in 2007—decided to try writing music
together again, neither the writing process nor the songs themselves
were dramatically different from what they had been before; the
vision that these three musicians had for the songs, though, had
evolved significantly. “What came out of that were a bunch of
stripped down songs,” Mastrangelo says. Unlike Larcenist's
self-titled, self-released first full-length—on which the band's
folk skeleton is wrapped with firm, full rock 'n' roll muscles;
wheezes with country's dusty lungs; and throbs with the impassioned
pulse of a punk-rock heart—the band intended to keep the bones of
these songs bare.
“The
acoustic stuff just worked out really well,” Mastrangelo adds.
“Initially, we were going to do this once and pick back up our
electric instruments and keep rocking, but we just fell in love with
it and just got into the sound. We all decided this is how we wanted
to continue to move forward and not try to change up anything again.”
Invigorated
by this new vision, Larcenist made some immediate changes before
recording these songs. First, bassist Steve Terry abandoned his
StingRay for a stand-up bass, an instrument with which he had no
previous experience, and taught himself to play. Next, Tompkins
decided to downgrade his drums to a simpler set-up. “When we were
playing originally, he was playing a really large, six-piece kit,”
Mastrangelo explains. “For this record, he basically took a
sixteen-inch floor tom and flipped it on its side to turn it into a
bass drum. He also plays a snare and a washboard, and he has one
little crash cymbal attached to the kick drum, and that's all he's
using. He stripped it down and really had to stretch himself to learn
how to play a little differently.”
Among
the most dramatic additions to Larcenist was Valentin Splett, a Swiss
violinist who had been in Boston for six months before he answered
the band's Craiglist ad. “We were looking for another string player
to fill out this EP and had no intention of making him or her a full
time member of the band or anything,” Mastrangelo tells. “We just
wanted someone to track these songs, but weren't really having much
luck until we came across Val, and it instantly worked.” Splett,
who has played violin since he was five and moved to Boston to
perform in the symphony, had never previously performed with a rock
band. “He's a phenomenal guy,” Mastrangelo continues, “and has
quickly become a close friend.”
With
this stripped down instrumentation and these additional strings,
Larcenist recorded We
Become the Hunted,
a five song EP that effectively executes their new primitive vision
on several levels, including the way in which the record was
recorded: live and in a single day. As a result the instruments on a
song like “Ocean City, Swallowing” feel as if they've melted
together. Splett's violin weaves between the pickets of Schoek's
piano, dodges the daubs of Tompkin's tambourine, and swirls around
the swishes of brushes swiping against a snare drum; rarely does it
emerge for some sort of solo or lead. Mastrangelo's acoustic guitar
and Terry's deep, doleful bass act as the song's breath, keeping the
beat almost unnoticeably.
Though
this same simplicity appears as a lyrical theme throughout We
Become the Hunted,
it's at its most powerful and present on the EP's opener “Leon”,
a song about Mastrangelo's father. “Never been much for fast
talking or shiny things / Working on the land and the steel got me
where I am today,” Mastrangelo sings, the second verse continuing
to shuffle behind him, when his lyrics reveal the speaker's core
conflict, “And now I'm raising a family that's caught up in finer
things / What's going to happen when I'm not around to fix your
kitchen sink / Or hunt to fill the freezer full of meat?”
“It's
a song that I think I've been trying to write for a long time,”
Mastrangelo admits. “I speak through my father's voice about
raising kids that didn't quite appreciate some of the values that he
was trying to instill on us at the time—myself and two sisters.
Personally, I didn't take much interest in swinging a hammer or going
hunting. I look back, though, and I really feel like I missed out on
opportunities to be taught a lot of important skills and traits.”
In
many ways, We
Become the Hunted is
an exercise in (and exhibition of) addition by subtraction.
Musically, it's a demonstration that power doesn't always come from
distortion pedals and Triple Rectifiers; lyrically, it's a plead to
appreciate the simplicity of family, friends, youth, and love. Maybe
more importantly, though, this EP is proof of the power of searching
for and finding one's voice, of taking a risk and following what
feels right, regardless of whether it seems sudden or strange or
uncertain.
For
Larcenist, following what feels right may not mean writing
stripped-down songs as much as it means writing songs with friends.
“The best thing is that we're all buddies,” Mastrangelo says. “I
really feel like we'll be that group of guys where, if a lot of ears
don't perk up, we'll still keep writing music in some way, shape, or
form.” It just so happens that the former makes the latter more
likely, and maybe more fun.
"Leon" appears on Larcenist's 2011 record titled We Become the Hunted. At the time of it's recording, Mastrangelo's second song had yet to be titled and was not intended for any specific release; he does cite a song from Drive By Trucker's most recent album as influential to the song. "Oh My Sweet Carolina" is a Ryan Adams cover; the song originally appeared on the 2000 album Heartbreaker.
Visit the band's Tumblr blog for more music.
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Two for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2011. If you're desperate for a copy of these tracks, please see the "About the Switchboard Sessions" page for info on how to contact the author.
