For the past twenty years, Lotus has been at the forefront of the burgeoning live electronic dance music scene. With one foot firmly entrenched as a jamband and the other in a multitude of styles – from jazz to funk to house to rock and everything in between – these musical pioneers have continued to amaze fans across the globe with their legendary live performances and smooth groove-based improv-laden sound.
Lotus has come a long way since their 2002 self-released debut album Vibes. With Free Swim, the quintet’s 10th full-length independent studio album, Lotus achieves a mature & cohesive sound that shines throughout and is bolstered by a pristine sounding mix and strong production values.
Glide’s Dave Goodwich recently electronically met up with Jesse & Luke Miller for an extended discussion about an array of topics including Free Swim, the future of live music, and the stigma of being in a jamband.
First off, how are you guys holding up throughout all this craziness?
Jesse Miller: Obviously for everyone it’s tough. As musicians, I think the hardest part for us is, on top of it being our career, our social lives are built around live music and we can’t do that either. It’s a huge change of pace. Not to mention the fact that we’re used to – even if we’re not doing a heavy tour schedule – once a month or every couple weeks, going somewhere and getting a change of scenery, so it definitely feels strange to be in one place for this long.
Yeah. Especially right now because we’re at the end of July & August which normally is the peak of festival season, touring season etc. And I know you guys have been pretty much on the road regularly – I can’t even remember the last time there was any sort of break or anything – so this has got to be the first time in a while where you really are sort of stuck at home and not able to do anything during the summer. I can’t imagine how tough that must be to get adjusted to.
JM: Thankfully, I have a home studio so I’m still involved with music daily, but I definitely miss the community that surrounds the scene.
Are you guys all together right now? Is everyone in Philly or are you still spread out over the last couple of months?
Luke Miller: Yeah, we’re pretty spread out. Jesse’s in Philly and I’m out here in Denver.
What would you say you miss more, in terms of not being able to perform? Is it the live experience with the audience, or just you guys getting together in a room and just bullshitting and playing?
JM: I think it’s more having something to work toward when you have a show coming up or a run of shows. It’s like, okay, let’s get these new songs together. Let’s put together some covers. Let’s keep everything rolling. And you can only do that to a certain extent when you’re off the road.
We have an album coming out and in addition to that, we’re sitting on another huge batch of songs that we’re interested in getting out to the world, but it just doesn’t make sense to do that when you can’t support it with a tour.
When you were recording the album (Free Swim) was it before all of this started? I read that it was earlier this year. Did you have to deal with the quarantine and lockdown stuff in the midst of the recording process?
LM: When was it, Jesse? Was it the end of January?
JM: The actual recording session was in February and then most of the mixing happened in March, so the actual sessions were done prior to lockdown. And then we were finishing up the mixes kind of during the first couple weeks of it.
LM: Yeah, like Jesse said, he’s got a home studio so we had done all the in-person recording in February and then he was able to finish up most of the mixes at home and then just do one final day in the studio to finish it off. So, we had all the group stuff done by the time lockdown went into place.
Gotcha. So, it sounds like it didn’t have that much of a direct impact on the songwriting or the recording process.
JM: No, and luckily, right at the beginning, a lot of groups that had planned records pushed back the releases and we kind of just kept going because at the beginning we thought, you know, maybe by the end of summer, we’d be back up and it’d be timed out perfectly. But even when it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, I still wanted to get the record out. And luckily the vinyl pressing plant wasn’t really affected, so we were able to get a fairly normal turnaround on the vinyl, which a lot of times that’s kind of the – after you’ve mastered a record, you know, you could turn around and put it out digitally within a couple weeks, but we almost always do a vinyl pressing, so that’s going to add a couple months to make sure that whole process gets done.
Have you written any material now that COVID has really been around for several months? Has it had any impact on either of you guys, musically speaking, that you’ve noticed so far?
LM: Well, out here in Colorado, during the “lockdown-lockdown” from, like, mid-March through Memorial Day, just having all that time at home, I just spent most of it songwriting. So, like Jesse mentioned, we’ve got a huge backlog going now of songs and I was working on some of my own individual songs so, yeah, during that time I did try to put into just buckling down and doing some songwriting. Unfortunately, there’s going to be a long lag before we’ll get to perform those live.
JM: Also, I thought your question was kind of getting at something like, if it was stylistically affecting the writing, which I don’t know if that was necessarily the case. I mean, especially when we’re writing for Lotus, we kind of always have, you know, the idea that these songs are going to be performed live so we’re thinking about what the instrumentation is going to be, how it’s going to affect a crowd, how it might fit into one of our setlists. So yeah, it wasn’t like lockdown started and we just wrote hopelessly depressing music (laughs).
Speaking of the instrumentation, I got to see the video that you guys are going to be releasing soon of “Bjorn Gets a New Haircut”, and I noticed, Luke, your use of — was it a baby grand piano that you had in the studio there?
LM: Yeah.
JM: (laughs) That was actually a full twelve-foot grand piano!
Oh wow, I’m amazed they were able to fit that in there.
LM: Yeah, they just have it in the corner of the studio. It’s a nice big studio. [Spice House Studios]
So, how has your instrumentation progressed from, say, back when you did Germination and Nomad until now? I ask because I know there’s a good mix of, you know, some Roland synthesizers, you have the grand piano…How has that progressed both live and in the studio?
LM: Yeah, I think with the keys we’ve been trying to use mostly analog keyboards if we can and, early on, that was kind of guided by our financial range. I mainly try to mix in either analog keyboards or the vintage stuff like the Wurlitzer & the Hammond organ and I’m trying to stick with that instead of emulation of those instruments.
JM: I would say, in terms of when we’re writing, it’s either synth stuff, like Luke’s saying, that would be more based on a polyphonic synth like a Juno-60 or 106 for the studio; or an electric piano, which, usually we use a Wurlitzer. And then, on this record, the grand piano was really nice to have…we used organ for a couple things. But I’d say in terms of live instrumentation, the biggest change has been going from a pretty strictly “rock” lineup with two guitars, bass, and drums, to – well, Luke mostly plays keyboards now. We never wanted to bring out these huge rigs with, you know, organs and all these things that are easy to break so for our live setup we use a Nord and a Virus and then I have Ableton set up so that I’m triggering things from a foot pedal while I’m playing, so that kind of adds in the extra layer of things that we do in the studio that we don’t have another good way to do live. Say if we recorded a string section or we recorded a singer on something, or I did some kind of crazy modular synth thing that we can’t really reproduce in the moment, we’ll have that stuff sampled so I can trigger it while we’re playing.
That makes sense. I mean, a Hammond B-3 sounds great, but I also imagine that it is a huge pain in the ass to lug one of those around the country.
LM: (laughs) Yeah, huge pain.
You mentioned that you mainly stick to keyboards now as opposed to earlier when you would switch back and forth between guitar and piano. Was it a concerted effort to focus more on keys or is that just sort of organically how the music has progressed over time?
LM: It’s not a complete shift. It’s really just a ratio of going more in terms of the keyboards. Plus, I think that, compositionally, when you have two instruments that are the same, they’re kind of naturally occupying the same range whereas guitar & keyboard can play together better. It’s a peanut-butter & chocolate situation.
I love that analogy.
JM: Actually, I feel like if we do two guitar pieces now, I’m almost always the one that writes them just because I think Luke’s tendency is to write for the keyboard because, compositionally, it’s an easier place to get a broader sound from.
In terms of the band’s songwriting, the majority of that responsibility is primarily handled by you two. Correct?
JM: Yes.
LM: Me & Jesse write all the songs together.
So, you guys develop the ideas either alone or together and then you bring it to the other three members. How, involved are they in the composition process?
LM: We generally have all the parts entirely written but then we’ll usually leave some sections of a song that are more improvisational.
I think it was Jesse who once mentioned fifteen years ago or so that about 50% of your concerts at that time were improv and the other 50% was more composed. Would you say that has remained the same or has that changed over time?
JM: That sounds about right.
Is there a difference in terms of that improv-to-composed ratio when you’re in the studio versus live?
LM: We’ve generally kept our studio albums more compositionally based and kind of leave the improv more in the live domain. There’s a little bit of improv in the studio, but from my point of view, the listening environment is so different when you’re listening to an album – you’re generally at home or in your car – it’s such a different experience than being at a concert. We approach those differently and it seems like, for the studio, when presenting a piece of music, we want that to be mostly composed with some room to breathe for improv.
JM: Also, we’re releasing almost 100% of our live shows, so there is countless hours (laughs), probably months at this point, of recordings of us improvising so, like Luke said, we like to use the studio to present a more concentrated form.
Let’s move on to some of your musical influences. I read that in high school you guys had a punk or ska band at one point?
JM & LM: Yeah! (laughs)
LM: It was a ska band.
Is any of that musical influence still around in your guys writing or playing?
JM: You know, the one thing I do take away from that is just this energy. When I would go to see punk rock shows when I was young, it didn’t matter if anyone could play. Everyone was out there just bashing out this stuff and the speed is there and there’s the mosh pit and there’s just this intense energy. I didn’t necessarily want to bring the same energy to a Lotus show, but I always wanted this kind of latent energy that can be released at some point.
LM: Yeah, there’s not too much of that influence on our live stuff, but on Free Swim we did “One Eyed Jones” with a horn section so that kind of threw me back to when we had a three-piece horn section in a ska band.
JM: And I would say when we put the ska band together and had a horn section, that’s when I was learning a lot about composition. Writing parts for these horns and figuring stuff out from a really basic level was one of the things that got me on this path of composition.
What do you guys mainly listen to now?
JM: I would say a pretty big variety. I like a lot of jazz stuff, electronic music, indie rock. I really appreciate good composition and also interesting studio work. Sometimes I might hear something that I really get drawn into and maybe it’s not a great song, but I just think the mixer really did something interesting. So, a lot of times maybe I listen on too critical a level, but those are the things that can draw me into something.
LM: I actually just heard on the radio this morning – an album that Jesse and I both noticed the mixing on – the new Chicano Batman record. It’s got a really cool sound to it. I’ve also really been digging Floating Points a lot the past year.
JM: Yeah, they’re definitely big for me also. And in that same realm, Four Tet has been a big one over the years.
Moving on to Free Swim. I feel like it’s slightly more traditional in a sense and closer to Germination or Nomad versus Eat the Light, which contained a lot of vocals, or Frames per Second, which had a more of a documentary feel.
JM: Yeah. We didn’t exactly know, when we were making it, because we recorded it in a pretty similar way to Frames per Second. We recorded, I think, 18 songs live but as we continued to work on it, I just got the sense that I wanted to make something that was more traditionally album length. I still think it’s pretty eclectic. Like you said, Eat the Light was more thematically drawing on this pop and dance music and incorporating a lot of singers. Free Swim is in some ways somewhat reflective of our live shows insofar as it goes in a lot of different directions, but there is kind of a vibe that goes through all 10 tracks.
LM: Yeah, it’s kind of reflective of the title. Sometimes we go into albums with a concept, like, especially with Eat the Light, the concept of a vocal guest, but with this one, we didn’t really put up huge guardrails. We didn’t set up big rules for ourselves. I think the main thing was just this undercurrent of good energy. It kind of sounds a little corny, but it was more of a subtle connective tissue than putting up more guardrails like we sometimes do.
Another thing that I noticed about the album is it feels like it draws from so many different musical influences. “Catacombs” has a jazz-house vibe to it, “Straight Blade” has a classic drum and bass beat, “Snake Island” almost has a Latin feel to it. Was that a concerted effort to draw in a bunch of different musical influences? Or does that just sort of organically happen during the creative process?
JM: I think it’s part of the history of Lotus. In some ways, it’s a blessing and a curse. Like, we really enjoy drawing on these different styles, especially with our instrumental music. You don’t want to write something that sounds the same every time.
I think for some rock bands that might be a little bit easier if they want to focus on more of the lyrical side, and keep this really similar sound behind it. But for us, where we’re getting the range is from drawing on these different styles. On the other hand, it’s a tough thing to say “what is Lotus”? Some people say it’s a “livetronica” band, a term I hate, because like you said there’s so many more things going on. And in some ways, it can be tricky because you don’t want to just pick a genre and try to make a genre piece. I think that would be just an imitation and usually those are pale imitations.
So, for us, it’s more along the lines of taking these ideas and putting it through the filter of Lotus. On “Straight Blade” for instance, you nailed it with the drum and bass. So, I was kind of thinking “What if Greenfield is playing what sounds like a Squarepusher amen break job, but is playing it live?” And then, on top of that, we’re going to play these jazz chords and really make it something that is not one and not the other. Rather, it’s something that’s unique to Lotus.
You talked about the “livetronica” term, which I agree is not the greatest name. Do you guys still consider yourselves a jamband?
LM: I always say we’re a jamband because, you know, we do so much improvisation. I would love for that term to, sort of, lose some of the stigma. In any genre, there’s going to be bad examples of certain things, and jambands, historically, have had a lot of those, but I don’t know why the big music blogs leave out jambands with the exception of Phish & the Grateful Dead. I really don’t know why. People are coming to the concerts in huge numbers and I think it’s truly an American institution. There really aren’t jambands in other countries, so I’m proud to be in one even though there are negative connotations to that.
Yeah. It’s got to be one of the most avid fan bases in the world, but it really doesn’t get a ton of mainstream respect.
JM: I think what Luke is touching on is, from our perspective, once you get that label, there’s definitely some benefits because there’s a big jamband scene and if you’re able to develop a following, they’re massively loyal. But Pitchfork, for example, would never write up Lotus no matter what record we make just because that term is associated with us. But I will say, at the same time, I’ll talk to other groups like, one of the last times I saw the band !!!, they were telling me the same thing. They’re like, “we’re dogged by this idea that we’re a dance-rock band and that style went out 12 years ago and now nobody will touch our stuff.” So, I think for every musician, just having the judgment happen before actually listening is the tough part.
Is it important on any level to break out of the jam scene, in terms of reaching different audiences? Whether it’s EDM or the pop music scene? Does that ever influence any decisions you guys make?
LM: I don’t know. I guess we’re not the savviest marketers (laughs) but we kind of just try to write music that we enjoy and play it live where we get the opportunity. We’re just trying to build our own thing and D.I.Y. it.
JM: Yeah, you always want to reach the biggest audience you can but not at the price of sacrificing something or really changing something in a way that doesn’t feel natural.
Back to the album. As you mentioned earlier, you guys primarily recorded it in February. How long was the overall process prior to that? In other words, how long does it take Lotus to put an album together from the beginning brainstorming sessions to the final pressing?
LM: Jesse and I are constantly writing songs when we’re not on the road or just writing demos, so I would say for this one, ever since we finished Frames per Second, we’ve been writing songs. About a year and a half. And then we recorded 18 of those and we whittled it down to 10 for the album.
JM: Yeah. I would say probably about a year getting this batch of demos together that we thought was enough for an album, which I would say was probably 25 and maybe a few others that we just didn’t put the time in to develop further, but then narrowed that down to like 20 and then scheduled a couple of sessions with the band to rehearse them. I think we did one in July, and maybe one In December. Then, from those rehearsals where maybe there were a couple songs that we felt weren’t working that well, we’d make a few changes to the arrangement but then kind of just get ready and go into the studio and knock them out.
As new albums come out, and as you guys progress, how does the older material work into your setlist? Do you still enjoy playing those older songs from Nomad and Germination as much as you once did?
LM: I think we enjoy them in different ways. With some of those songs from Nomad that we’ve been playing for so long we kind of feel more comfortable with stretching them out because we kind of know how they work and can be a little bit more open to experimentation. But, for me as a composer, it’s always fun to play the new stuff. I enjoy both, but in different ways.
JM: Yeah, we definitely still play stuff from all points of our career. Some of that older stuff is, you know, the “popular hits” so we always like to do a good mix of the newest stuff, things that are going to surprise fans, and then the stuff that they know really well.
In general, how do you guys feel about this album, especially compared to other your other studio releases?
JM: Yeah, I really like it. I stand by all our albums, but this was actually the first album that I did all the mixing on and I kind of set up this studio with Lotus stuff in mind because I wanted to have something that was up to a level that I thought I would be able to mix a Lotus record. So, for me it’s a really great feeling to get to the end of that and feel like it not only held up against the other mixes we’ve done, but I think some of the best sounding mixes we’ve ever done.
LM: Yeah, I agree. The final step of the record was the mixing and I think everything had a rich sound to it. I hope when people check it out, they check it out either in a high-quality download or vinyl so they can get the full experience.
I noticed that you guys recorded Free Swim at Spice House Sound in Philly and I know previous albums have been recorded at other Philly-area studios such as Rittenhouse Soundworks. What compelled you guys to go with Spice House this time?
JM: Well, one reason was that one of the other studios we work with in Philly is called Minor Street – and that place sounds really good, it has an awesome tape machine that I really like – but it’s a little limiting for doing what we wanted to do with the full band tracking. At Spice House, we were able to track everybody at the same time and they just have really great equipment in there. All three studios we’ve mentioned have great stuff but I think the combination of the space, the gear they had, the engineers there, and the fact that it’s less than a mile from where I live and where our warehouse is kind of made things pretty easy.
Overall, what do you see happening with the live music scene in the next year to year and a half?
LM: I think we’re kind of unfortunately on hold until we get a vaccine out there to all the people. I’m hoping that in 2021 we can get back out there but, personally, I’m bearing down for nothing as far as regular touring the rest of this year.
JM: Yeah, definitely nothing until the end of this year, like Luke said. I mean, if for some reason there is not a vaccine, the only way I could see getting back is if it just gets really under control where the risk is going down. Unfortunately, live music – at least how we know it – is known to be one of the worst ways it can spread. You have people with open drinks, people yelling, people really close together. All the things that would allow it to spread it quickly. It’s definitely a huge loss for our society. People love live music for a reason. It’s this ritual, and I’m sure we all have examples of going to see shows and just feeling changed or inspired the next day. And that’s definitely something I don’t feel I’ve ever experienced watching a live stream. So, we’re really hoping that within the next year we can get back to it.
Was there a plan to host another Summerdance Festival this summer prior to the pandemic?
LM: Yeah.
Gotcha. So, very tentatively, 2021 as of right now?
JM: (laughs) Yeah. I mean, nobody wants to make any promises at this point. Some shows now are on their fourth rescheduling and at that point, it’s like what are we doing?
LM: Obviously, a lot of people are hurting financially. With live music, and particularly the jamband scene, historically, such a thin portion of the money that we make comes from selling albums. I just hope that people can recognize that and maybe step up a little bit from what they normally do and maybe buy a record this time around since there’s not going to be concerts for a while.
Yeah. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be, especially for a band like Lotus, where you really depend so much on the road. I’m sure album sales certainly help but, like you said, it only represents a small portion.
LM: Yeah. It’s not even close.
JM: It’s funny to hear all this advice like, “Oh, we can get into selling live shows” or “we can get a new streaming video”; we can do all these things that jambands have been doing for years and have always been way ahead of the curve on because album sales and these other things just make up a much smaller fraction. So, it’s kind of like everybody lives in that world now. We feel like we’ve already been taking advantage of what we see are the opportunities with our art. It’s not like we’re leaving a lot of stuff on the table (laughs). I think some groups have this thing of “Ok, we can get into these new things” but when you have already been doing it, it’s just like taking away one giant piece.
You guys have a drive-in concert scheduled for next month in Philly. Do you plan on approaching that differently than a regular live show? I know that has to be a unique experience, playing in front of a bunch of headlights.
LM: (laughs) I think we’re going to approach it the same. We do so much improv, so we just kind of go on our intuition. But I think we’re going to go in there and it’s going to be as close to a live show from the stage portion as you can do right now.
Gotcha. Is there any other stuff like this that you guys have planned right now or do you sort of want to see how this goes first?
JM: At the moment it’s just this. You know, there’s a lot of drive-in things popping up but safety is definitely a concern for us. This is run through Live Nation and the Phillies, so we think if anybody is going to be able to get it right, they are. Also, I’ve seen a number of drive-in shows having to be cancelled because of various changes in regulations and I think we’ve all seen the stories of these drive-in shows where it doesn’t look like people are separated and they’re all together, so we’re just trying to be as responsible about it as we possibly can.
Well, I will be there but I promise to social distance and keep my mask on. Any final words you guys wanted to add about the album?
JM: I know people have heard “Catacombs” already, but we’re really looking forward to getting the full record out. I definitely still believe in albums as an artform. We see them not as a collection of singles, but rather a single collective piece, so check out the whole record when that comes out.
