If you follow the American University music scene at all, chances are you have heard of a band called Birdcage. The band, formed over a year ago, has been a consistent live act since its conception. Born out of the AU Singer-Songwriter’s Hub, Birdcage was strictly a live experience, as they mention in the interview, but now, that is no more. Avian Flu drops at midnight and WVAU got to sit down with them to discuss the process of the album. Without further ado, Birdcage.
WVAU: First off, thanks for talking to me today! Tell me a little bit about how Birdcage came to be. I know it started while y’all were at AU so…
Noah: On the first week I met someone and she told me to go to Singer-Songwriter’s Hub and a couple days later, we were playing music in her dorm and we were like “we should start a band and go there and start the band” and we got a drummer. The three of us started a band called Tinted Window. And then we got her [points to Ariel] to play bass.
Ariel: Matt Brown likes to have bands play songs and then be like “what do you want [on this song]” and they were like “we want a bassist” so I got the fuck up there and I played with them, the one song they had and it was a good song, I was really impressed and that was that. We were Tinted Window for a semester.
Owen: And then the band existed.
Ariel: We had one show in the Battelle Atrium with Pink Noise and then Winter break came and we moved on from the drummer and I became the lead singer and I continued playing guitar. And then we needed a bassist so we got a bassist.
Owen: And you got me.
Ariel: Exactly, we got pigeon. We call him pigeon.
Owen, Noah, and June in Unison: You call him pigeon
Ariel: I call him pigeon. But anyway, before that we were like Tinted Window is kind of a bad name and it’s the name of a very popular super group and one of them’s dead so we can’t steal their name. So I reflected back to a time last semester when I got a text from Noah where he was like “yo, I just got attacked by an owl by Kreeger”
Noah: Yeah, I got attacked by an owl.
Ariel: And he was like “AUPD was right there and they didn’t do anything. It was so fucked up.”
June: What are they gonna do?
WVAU: Arrest the bird
Noah: Nah I’m like they saw me get attacked by a bird and they didn’t even roll the window down to be like “yo are you good?” and they just sat there. Like I actually got attacked by an owl, that shit was fucked up. I’m dead serious.
June: Okay, okay, so you changed the name to Birdcage
Noah: Nah that had nothing to do with it at all
Ariel: Yes it did! Noah’s wrong. It was Noah that came up with the name Birdcage and then one day Noah and I were hanging out and I couldn’t remember the name of our bassist so I was like “his name is pigeon” because that’s kinda the vibe. Then Noah was like “I’m gonna play drums” and he did that for a week and then was like “I don’t wanna play drums anymore”, so we went to MonHub and I looked for a drummer. I was like “I’m looking for a drummer” and then suddenly from the back of the room I saw someone stand up and it was her.
June: I was like two feet away from you
Ariel: No, I was on stage and you were behind Jack and I remembered this one from a legendary band called Finger. So we had a band and we played two shows, one of which was Johnathon Alger’s inauguration, look how well that turned out. If we kept playing I bet he would still be here.
Owen: Then we played a show at The Pocket and then Corey decided to leave the band and it’s been the four of us since.
WVAU: Okay so, I listened to the album and I think it’s awesome. I’m curious about the process, when you sat down to make the album did you know what you wanted the songs to sound like, or is it that you start recording and just make a new song?
Owen: When we started recording, we had been playing some of the songs for months and since the beginning of the whole thing. Some of them were very old and we knew them very well, some of them were newer and we were trying to get them as ready as we could before we got to the studio. Also trying to perform live as well. And when we got to the studio, we could have been more prepared, but we had our friend Jason help us record the whole thing, but we mainly just used the drums from it.
June: We only did five songs off of it because the second half was yet to be written at that point. So we continued writing and did the recording for those ones at the beginning of last semester.
Owen: Since then, we’ve been recording mini sessions for extra parts, redoing things we weren’t happy with, adding things, just recording things until we were happy with everything.
WVAU: What’s the songwriting process like? Is it collaborative or is it just one of you that is carrying most of that work?
Ariel: Primarily for this album it was mostly me, I brought a lot of the songs to the band with my guitar part and vocal part and they did as they pleased. It’s a collaborative process but as far as the writing, it was mostly me.
June: We each write our own parts, but the base of most of the songs are brought fully formed.
Ariel: But I think we are gonna shift away from that.
Owen: Recently we’ve been moving away from that. One of our new ones was kinda written during a brand practice by the four of us and that’s because she was coming with a vocal melody and some lyrics, but that one’s not on the new album.
WVAU: Where are you guys drawing inspiration from because when I was listening it kinda reminded me of some of the Wednesday stuff
Ariel: Well both of us [points at June] are huge Modest Mouse fans, those two like Geese.
Noah: They’re okay, I was not influenced by them at all.
Owen: For me, I don’t really listen to music that sounds like music we make apart from being guitar based. I listen to a lot of emo and a lot of 90s stuff, but I realized [through relistens] the way bass players I like write bass lines is the way I’ve been influenced in the way I play
Noah: Here’s what I’ll say — I mostly play the guitar and I’m not trying to be self-deprecating but I learned to play the guitar while making the album. So I was always doing what I could and was informed by other things. I primarily play the piano and that is on the album a little, but a lot of it was like “what can I do?” and playing within those bounds, so I was more influenced by things subconsciously. There are a few things that are Title Fight inspired and that’s the most direct thing I can point to, but there are a lot of things that I just wanted to do anything.
Ariel: Oftentimes in practice he would play something completely different in practice than he had, like, last week.
Noah: I hardly ever play the same thing. It’s gotten to a point where I do better because it makes sense to, but there was a long time where I didn’t play the same thing ever because I was just trying to figure it out.
June: The songs “Lobster” and “The Bucket” were my babies and I did half of “Wisdom Teeth” and I did the drums on the rest. I pull from Modest Mouse, Pavement, Pixies, Vampire Weekend, Ween, little bit of Sonic Youth.
Owen: I think Pixies is a good comparison because they did the quiet verse loud chorus dynamic and we fall into that
June: We all listen to a lot of 90s stuff and we fall into that emphasis of dynamics and being loud, but also being pretty.
WVAU: Drawing back to performing these songs for a while, what does it mean for you guys that these songs are finally going to be out on streaming and that they aren’t just available live now?
Owen: I did a lot of the mixing on the recordings, so for me it was a lot of work and very fulfilling work that I’m proud of, but it was also so much work that I’m glad it’s gonna be out and that people can hear all the hard work we put into it and what we’ve been doing this whole time, because it’s been a long time. Also for me I’m kind of looking forward to be moving on to the next thing. I’m not bored of these songs but I’m ready to make new ones.
Noah: I’ve been thinking about this a lot more lately, but that Birdcage has not been a consistent experience, we only existed in a live format, so every person who witnessed us saw us in a different way. Because it’s a different venue, a different performance, a different order — sometimes it doesn’t sound right or whatever. There was never one thing to agree on or reference with us. We were growing and changing so every performance sounded different every show. What this is to me is that I finally know what the songs are and I’m glad people will finally have an objective material to refer to. When people know the band I will know what they’ve heard and that I’m not unhappy with. Also, the album took a long time and there was a lot of perfectionism with it and I made him keep doing things
Owen: You were very critical of your guitar parts specifically.
Ariel: We all pissed off Owen in the mixing process
Noah: I think I drove most of the re-recording, I think I was the most critical and the most unhappy and I kept making us do shit over again.
June: There were a lot of recording sessions where we would come back and go to record a new part and he would make us re-record the last one.
Owen: Some things we did once and when we went back we weren’t happy and we had to re-record.
Ariel: I’m really excited for it to be out because it is a tangible example of what I’ve done with my college years. My mom is always like “get a job” even though I have a job and I’m not doing the most academic major so this is almost like a final project even though I’m not graduating.
June: For me this is probably the biggest project I’ve ever worked on in terms of time and how much effort I put into it. I always tell myself that the ability in my life, if I can create something that makes someone else, who I don’t know, feel something really in any regard but mainly in the way I feel about the things I enjoy then I will feel successful and that’s a step closer to that.
WVAU: What is the process behind picking singles, was it the first one first?
Ariel: “Wisdom Teeth” was first
Owen: It was the best result of the initial sessions and we were like “let’s get this done as soon as possible so we can get a single out.”
Noah: And then “Sugar [On My Tongue]” was everybody who knew us’ favorite song and it happened to come out really well and we were happy with the recording so we knew what people wanted and the product was good.
June: We were also going to release a third single, but ended up not.
Ariel: Mostly because making a third cover was a lot of work.
Owen: It was also about timing because the album wasn’t finished until a few weeks ago so putting out another single was not practical or helpful.
WVAU: Who’s making the collages for the album covers?
All Together: All of us.
Ariel: I made the “Wisdom Teeth” one with my friend Marina and we all did the album cover and a quadrant for each of us.
June: Noah did “Sugar” and the logo for Birdcage and the poster for the upcoming release show.
Ariel: I think he’s found a real passion for collaging. We’re really proud of him.
Noah: I was just doing it in Katzen. It’s one of those things where you just gotta cut some shit out and put it on there.
Owen: We spent a lot of time getting good source material whether that was going to thrift stores and getting books or using magazines.
June: I got a printer.
Ariel: A used printer.
June: We fought a lot of battles with it and got the wrong ink at one point.
Owen: Then we had to DoorDash printer ink.
June: We also at the time thought it would be a good idea to make the album cover 3 feet by 3 feet and it turns out we can’t scan the whole thing.
Ariel: We went to National Geographic headquarters in Dupont to scan it.
Noah: We have a connection there and we asked “this thing is this size can you do this?” and we go there and it was almost the same size as the one we used. It was so awkward, I felt like I was dying, I felt so awful. It’s the middle of the work day. We put the scanner on the floor and take the lid off and they’re standing there and watching. We got it back and it looked awful. Then we found a place in Silver Spring, but it was like an hour away. I missed class to go there and we got a scan and it looked so good and it was like $90. Not that bad.
Ariel: We have a band fund for merch and stuff. Buy merch. Buy our t-shirts. Come to a show.
Noah: Bandcamp.com. We’re selling CDs there. Buy our CD on Bandcamp.
WVAU: Finally, what’s next for Birdcage?
Ariel: More music.
Owen: We just wanna keep writing.
Ariel: And performing.
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Photo Credits: Brady Scott