Ahead of the release of their debut record ‘Pollen’—and fresh-off the drop of their ‘Live at Studio G’ EP—the Brooklyn band shares the stories behind a few of their new tracks
———————————————————————————————
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, IT’S SUPER… bloom. Coming around the corner and now walking towards me at this coffeeshop and hi, uh-oh, oh man, maybe I should’ve, like, actually considered showering today…
While I’m not religious, I’m pretty sure there’s a rule or commandment… psalm-thing like that… which says “love thy neighbor(‘s music),” and fortunately for both the most god-fearing of rock-music fans in our mutual slice of Brooklyn + local heathens such as myself, the dudes of Superbloom def don’t make it hard.
Ahead of the release of their 12-track debut record Pollen (out June 1st on some undeniably sick ~cerulean~ vinyl + very pre-orderable now), the Brooklyn foursome has released a string of rad singles—two of which were recently premiered by small local underground blogs Brooklyn Vegan and CoS—so to get the scoop on the songs, I recently knocked on the dudes’ door to borrow a cup of sugar, retrieve the frisbee I accidentally threw in their yard and score a couple of quotes. (JK we just exchanged emails. We may be neighbors, but it is 2021.)
So without further ado, here’s a hit list of three super tracks from the super babez of Superbloom. Best enjoyed in headphones while sipping coffee at the cafe around the corner from both of your apartments OR live, loud and maybe blacked-out in a basement while ecstatically bathing in miscellaneous fluids spilled + shed by sexy strangers as you take elbows to the ribs and man buns to the mouth…
For the record, I’ve only done the former. But goddamn, I cannot wait to do the latter.
“MARY ON A CHAIN“
Superbloom says: “Mary was the last song we wrote for the record, and it was basically written remotely by sending demos back and forth between NYC, New Hampshire and Texas, where we were all individually staying. Kind of serendipitous that last song we wrote ended up being the first single off the record.”
“MUZZLE“
Superbloom says: “The lyrics for Muzzle were written at the end of summer I think of 2020 when everything was hyper crazy. And I’d always have the news on or be on Twitter or Reddit. So that was the environment Muzzle was written in. I think the song is about having something to say but choosing not to—for better or for worse.
The kids in the video are doing the same shit we all did growing up—before we started paying attention to what’s going on around us. And the video is found footage developed by this guy on youtube—so there’s no sound and it’s unedited. I thought that was a cool thing for this song.”
“POLLEN“
Dave Hoon of Superbloom says: “The lyrics are more stream of consciousness than having a concrete meaning or anything . But it’s hovering around the idea of a feeling or memory or an event being stuck in your head — And perhaps altering your state of mind.
The demo versions we sent around was called Bouncy Pumpkins-y Song because it had a Smashing Pumpkins vibe. And that was the song’s name for months and months and months.
The entire arrangement and melodies were written out on acoustic demos except for the third verse. I think we had probably a dozen different ideas for the third verse that we tried out live. Some of those jams were pretty draining… I think we were hell bent on making a third verse sound different from the rest of the song and the rest of our other songs up to that point.
And even after landing on the final structure we had numerous arrangements for it before it was solidified. Finding the right vibe and combo of instrumentation, volume, and impact didn’t come until after the studio. Tim and I experimented with so many guitar tones and layers in the practice room which actually ended up being the final takes. A ton of work for something that ends up sounding super fucking simplistic.”
Tim Choate of Superbloom says: “This song went through a bunch of iterations for all the reasons Dave mentioned. A few of the guitar parts are also from some of the first songs we ever wrote that were eventually cut or never fully developed. For all of those reasons, I feel like this song has in a way always been with us. When it all came together, it just felt right to make it the title track of the album.”
—
Along with teasing out Pollen tracks one at a time, this week Superbloom released a three-track EP, recorded at Studio G—a favorite space of many of my favorite local artists—late last year.
“The EP was tracked and filmed live at Studio G in Greenpoint at the end of December 2020,” the band told me over email. “It was the end of a bleak year with no shows and we wanted to try and capture the raw essence of a live set in spite of it all. We rehearsed our asses off to get tight for the set in general, but worked especially hard to get the vocal harmonies right: they were all sung by Dave on the record and had to be rearranged for 3 people and 3 different voices for the live performance.”
—
BREAK OUT THE CLARITIN, KIDS! Pollen drops on Tuesday, and—fair warning—it’s gonna be ~everywhere~ this summer.
———————————————————————————————
Follow Superbloom at @superbloomnyc, buy the record on Bandcamp and add their music to your Spotify playlists now!
Feature image provided by the artist.