Checking In With: THE CASUAL LEAN Posted by Corey Schmidt / July 17, 2007 Remember these? From here on out we're going to be a bit more flexible with the kinds of bands we "check in with" (as in they don't always have to be gnarly dudes who have never heard of updating their MySpace pages) in an attempt to bring them more often. Enjoy the following with THE CASUAL LEAN guitarist Chris.
Pastepunk: According to your bio, Swears has essentially been around in some thought or form since April 2005. If you were to create a timeline for the album up to this point, how would it read?
Chris: We actually recorded Swears in July of 2004. We took out a bank loan to fund the initial tracking of the record with the idea that it would get picked up by a label and they would invest in some overdubbing and a better mix down. In December of '04 Doghouse Records contacted us with interest in releasing the record. They gave the go ahead for us to finish tracking, overdubs, and mixing with Kurt Ballou; eventually completing Swears in June 2005. We spent most of the year negotiating with them before turning down their offer in October. After that ordeal we decided to release Swears ourselves with the whole idea of a pre-sale, but right around the same time we had a couple member changes which made it hard to give a major release the attention it needed to happen. We then put it on a hiatus and focused on new material, and it wasn't until our manager proposed the idea of releasing Swears to Orange Peal Records in early 2007 that we even began to think about its release once again. Swears will get it's proper release on July 31st.
Pastepunk: Kurt Ballou is a producer typically known for recording and playing with bands of a heavier persuasion than THE CASUAL LEAN. That said, what drew you guys to record the disc with him, and how do you feel about the finished product now, a few years after the fact? Would you record with him again?
Chris: Every member of this band started in either a punk or metal band. Growing up that's what we listened to. Somewhere along the lines our taste in music broadened and the sort of experimentation that indie music allowed sort of drew us in that direction. I think our backgrounds are very apparent in the music as far as it's production and approach to songwriting. That being said, we chose Kurt because we knew he had established himself as an engineer and had a great studio that was also affordable. Because we didn't have a large budget to record the album, we produced it ourselves with Kurt as the engineer and basically documented the songs as they were. We are planning to go back to God City for our follow up and we've asked him to produce it this time around. As far as how we feel about Swears, any band is its own worst critic, but I feel that for the time and money that we put into it that it's a good debut.
Pastepunk: What are your plans with Swears now that it is officially out on a label? Are you treating it as a re-release of sorts or is this the real deal with full-scale promotions, distro, touring, radio, etc in full effect? What are your hopes for Swears, and what's next for THE CASUAL LEAN?
Chris: Full effect. There has been a lot of advertising for Swears in the past couple months. We have PR for both radio and non-radio media, full distro, and have plans to tour in support of the record in the fall. We're excited to be able to play these songs live and have people be able to take the record home and really listen to it. We really have no idea how the record is going to do, but we are very interested to see how well it goes over on a national level. The next record is going to be a large jump forward from Swears. I really don't know what to expect for the final product yet, but the new music so far is a lot more solid and together than anything on Swears. It's baby making music for sure.
- Thanks to Chris for his thoughtful answers. You can check out songs from Swears at the band's MySpace account.
Pastepunk: According to your bio, Swears has essentially been around in some thought or form since April 2005. If you were to create a timeline for the album up to this point, how would it read?
