Sheer Mag Break Down Their New Album Playing Favorites Track By Track: Exclusive
The post Sheer Mag Break Down Their New Album Playing Favorites Track By Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.
Track by Track is a recurring feature series in which artists guide readers through every song on their latest release. Today, Sheer Mag take us into their new record, Playing Favorites. The band’s Tina Halladay and Matt Palmer dive even deeper into the album on our Consequence UNCUT podcast, which presents the complete interview unedited for your listening pleasure below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Sheer Mag have returned with their first album in five years, Playing Favorites. As the collection’s rousing title track suggests, Playing Favorites feels like a greatest hits collection from the Philly band. In addition to it being their first release since signing with Third Man Records last year, it’s a return to their classic, heavily-inspired rock sound while forging impressive new musical ground throughout.
The band — comprised of vocalist Tina Halladay and multi-instrumentalists Matt Palmer, Kyle Seely, and Hart Seely — have had Playing Favorites in the works for a while now, writing and recording the album over a three-year period. “My joke right now is when people ask if me if I’m excited about the album coming out, I tell them that I already heard it, so I’m not as excited,” Halladay jokes over a video call alongside songwriter and rhythm guitarist Matt Palmer.
Despite the album’s neatly-produced, charming air, Playing Favorites does signal a slight departure for Sheer Mag from their last album, A Distant Call. Certain tracks, like back-half cuts “Tea on the Kettle,” “When You Get Back,” and the emotional “Golden Hour,” bring a deeply earnest sense of devotion. Meanwhile, energetic numbers like “I Gotta Go” and “Eat It and Beat It” are examples of the band making great rock ‘n’ roll without taking themselves too seriously.
Palmer and Halladay both speak to the record’s variety, and name Steely Dan, The Eagles, and American folklore as some of the album’s influences. As evidence of that, they’ve added plenty of enjoyable backing vocals this time around — but throughout each song is Halladay’s inimitable voice, conjuring power and tenderness in some of her most impressive performances to date.
Listen to Sheer Mag’s Playing Favorites below, and read Matt Palmer and Tina Halladay’s Track by Track breakdown of the album — which includes a story about playing Playstation 5 while Mdou Moctar recorded a guest guitar solo for “Mechanical Garden.”
Grab tickets to Sheer Mag’s 2024 North American tour here.
“Playing Favorites”:
Matt Palmer: This was the first song that we wrote in the second phase of writing — four of the songs came from a previous session, and so when we decided to go from making it a 7-inch to a full LP, this was the first song that was written for that. It sort of set the tone for the rest the record and the vibe that we wanted to capture, which was maybe a little bit lighter and more fun. There was this real sense of getting the band back together, after everyone had been separated literally across the world for like three years. It’s sort of nostalgic and reminiscing on our early days in the band, touring to South by Southwest, going to Texas. And yeah, just getting the band back together.
Tina Halladay: I was listening to some Boston the other day and I was thinking, this is how I imagined “Playing Favorites”; it’s about the “rock ‘n’ roll show” and about the music, how we’re all even with the crowd, we’re all having fun, and that’s the whole point of music. That reminds me of those Boston songs about being in a rock and roll band and such. It’s a song written for us, and also for people coming to see us.
“Eat It and Beat It”:
MP: We wanted to kind of write a jock jam, and they sort of wanted me to write a song that was going to call out bands and start beef, almost like a publicity stunt. And I just wanted to write a cocky rock song about being the best rock and roll band that there is. I was living with my parents at the time when I was writing this record, and my dad was telling me about how waitresses used to say, “Eat it and beat it,” or something like that. And at the time, we were thinking about calling the record Check, Please, having it be this sort of diner thing.
TH: It’s funny, as much as it’s supposed to be cocky and about other bands, there’re parts of it that are weird insecurities of our own shit. I guess it’s not great putting that out there, but it is funny.
MP: Yeah, we’re secretly describing our worst fears about ourselves throughout the entire song. That’s why when we’re making press releases and someone is like, “You should fucking call out this band and talk about how much they suck,” I was like, “I don’t want to do that.” Because what if this album ends up being shit and everyone hates us? They’re gonna look at this song and be like, “Look who’s fucking laughing now!” [Laughs]
The psycho bridge part on this song was done via tape manipulation. I showed up to the mixing session a day late in Binghamton, New York, where everyone was practicing. And by the time I had showed up there, the two brothers, Hart and Kyle [Seely] — who should never be left alone — were there with the mixer, and they had come up with this completely insane middle passage that was really cool, but they turned the tape machine down and pitched everything down. But they do it in a way that the track speeds up, so there’s sort of this weird moment. They started building this sort of psycho “don’t eat the brown acid” moment in the middle of the song, where it gets psychedelic in a scary way, and then Tina dunks your head in cold water and wakes you back up and is like, “No, you have to leave. It’s time to eat it and beat it, you’ve overstayed your welcome. You fell asleep at the bar, now it’s time to get the fuck out.”
“All Lined Up”:
MP: I’ve always thought of this song as sort of a sleazy, Steely Dan song about playing pool and staying up late on illegal substances. It was the first single, honestly, because the label wanted it to be. We could have chosen anything, but after years of choosing our own singles, we were actually excited for some guidance in that direction.
TH: That song is one of the four that we recorded way before the rest of them. “All Lined Up” and “Mechanical Garden” are the two that didn’t change from what we had previously recorded. That song came at kind of a different time than everything else, too.
MP: Right, it comes from the same sort of depressing era as the four from the original session — “Mechanical Garden,” “Golden Hour,” “All Lined Up,” and “Moonstruck.” They were all written in more of a depressed place. So there’s this feeling that you have the hangover but the night isn’t over yet on “All Lined Up.” Just sort of chasing the night, maybe further than you should. But it’s cool that it made it onto the record basically in the original shape that we recorded it like three years ago.
“Don’t Come Lookin’”:
MP: For this one, Kyle really wanted to have an Eagles vibe. We hadn’t really tried to do a song like that before, in the “alt-country” lane or whatever. But he wanted it to be like we were standing in the middle of a field of grain with a giant 12-string guitar, just strumming away. It’s actually a very simple song. I mean, every once in a while, I feel like you got to throw a song in there that doesn’t have 14 chord changes, and that was this one. I feel like when we write simple songs like that, they tend to be some of our most effective ones.
TH: This one was one of the tougher tracks to record vocals on. Eventually, we kind of started from scratch, erased everything, and I just sang the entire song in a different way, did some different things in the chorus, and was trying to channel some female country singer vibes. It turned out way better than what we had been doing before that for hours and hours.
MP: Yeah, it was a really long, long session. I like the themes of the lyrics a lot — I was trying to evoke some magical realism, like early American folk tales. I like the wishing well imagery, it’s sort of this short story where this weird man falls down a wishing well and is just following this woman across the country as she moves from place to place trying to escape him.
TH: It’s also about trying to get away from this person in your life who’s torturing you and keeps trying to come back in with these intentions you think are pure, but it always ends up terrible.
“I Gotta Go”:
MP: We put two empty bars before Tina’s “I gotta go!” in the chorus because it’s funny. I remember showing this song to my dad after I wrote it and he just laughed at that part. And I was like… “I don’t want people to laugh at this song” or whatever. But it does play with this weird comedic timing. It’s sort of trying to evoke when you’re like laying in bed with somebody and you’re like, “Oh fuck, I have to go to work in 30 minutes.” And then you fall asleep again and then you look at your phone and you’re like, “Oh fuck, I have to go right now, I’m like gonna be late for work.” Not like manic in the bad sense, you’re just late!
TH: There are always some things that I end up doing that seem insane and end up working out. So I hope everyone finds it as hilarious as you and Matt’s dad [Laughs]
MP: The scatting part I enjoy a lot. Tina was initially resistant to it.
TH: Yeah, they were trying to avoid it when we were recording it, but you can kind of hear my resistance to it in the mix. I try to do it in the least corny way possible. I feel like the only person who’s allowed to scat is Van Morrison.
MP: This song also has one of my favorite lines on the record: “I’d rather crawl through broken glass than to see you sleep on your own.” I was walking in New York and saw a big advertisement for Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird play, and one of the testimonials read “I’d crawl through broken glass to see this play again,” which I thought was absolutely insane. Like, why would you crawl through broken glass for anything, least of all this fucking Aaron Sorkin play? [Laughs]
“Moonstruck”:
TH: This song changed completely from the original. I did like the original, but I do like this new version better — which is so weird to think about, a song being completely different than what you’re presenting to everyone as a final product.
MP: The original song was way simpler, and it was faster. I don’t think it had an intro, and I don’t think that it had the insane bridge/solo part. Which is one of Kyle’s most insane guitar parts, it just sounds like you’re being attacked by a bunch of melodic bees. The only moment you can hear the original is right after the first chorus. We sort of take away all of the bass and the perky guitar parts. And you can hear — for like five seconds — the other version of the song with a 12-string and piano. And then it snaps back to the funkier arrangement. This one is definitely one of Kyle’s favorites.
“Mechanical Garden”:
MP: This one features a guitar solo from Mdou Moctar. It was a random idea that Kyle had and we were fortunate enough to know who his manager is, so we reached out. Kyle, Hart, and I went to go visit Mdou while he was staying with his band in an Airbnb in Ridgewood, Queens. All we knew was that he wanted 500 bucks in an envelope. So we drove up there and we hung out. Kyle and Hart went into the corner and set up the recording area — he hadn’t really heard the song, so they spent 15 minutes, not even teaching him the chords, but just showing him what key it’s in and whatnot.
I’m like on the couch playing Grand Theft Auto 5 with the drummer of Mdou Moctar, trying to help him get through the tutorial level, we’re playing Mortal Kombat and stuff. Eventually, they recorded a million takes, and we thought we’d just edit it into something, sort of sculpt it on our own later. But all the while, when Mdou’s not playing, he’s just looking at me and the drummer playing, like, Mortal Kombat 5. And then he says “We should get a PlayStation 5 and bring it back home with us.” He wanted to get one for his friends back home! So he takes the envelope with $500 and tells his manager: “Hey, can you get a PS5 with this money?” [Laughs]
But when we were playing Mortal Kombat, he was like, “Don’t buy this game for them. Get FIFA instead” or something.
TH: I don’t know if this one is one of my favorite songs to sing. It’s got a very different kind of vocal thing than I feel like I do on other songs, but it’s fun. We just started kind of learning it in practice, so it’s gonna be crazy to see how it turns out with just the five of us playing it instead of all this other bullshit happening.
MP: Yeah, it’s our most over-dubbed song, so it’ll be interesting to see how we figure out these 12 parts that are on the record.
“Golden Hour”:
TH: We lost a friend recently who was really important to all of us in different ways. So this song was for her. It’s hard to talk about. Because the Seelys, who aren’t here, are definitely very, solemn young men who don’t talk about their feelings a ton, while I am a total baby who cries about everything and tells everyone everything going on in my brain all the time. So it’s a tough one for all of us to talk about.
MP: I like to think of it as all the things that the two solemn young men can’t say with words, they’ve kind of put into this song. There’s a guitar solo at the end which is extremely expressive to me, and almost says more than the lyrics do. This is one of the most intricately arranged songs on the record. This has like a million layers, and we spent a long time peeling back, adding, seeing what needs to be there and what felt a little bit too resplendent, what felt like tasteful and meaningful. There’s this little organ break in the middle that always sort of breaks me up before the solo launches. It’s written from love and mourning.
“Tea on the Kettle”:
MP: Tina thinks this one is too British.
TH: Yeah, at first I was like, “What the fuck is going on? Why is this song so British? What the hell is happening?” But now it’s like my favorite song. It’s about a lot of stuff, but I like it when we say it’s about me and Matt’s friendship because I love things being about me. [Laughs]
MP: Yeah, it’s about sharing, but it’s definitely a love song. It could almost be about someone and their dog, like, train hopping or something. That’s sort of the imagery I feel like I was playing with. It’s about a very pure sense of companionship where everything is shared, you have each other’s back, and if anyone has anything, then the other person has the same amount. It’s also about finding the peace of having some place to just make eggs in the morning and, and relax from all the craziness of the road.
“Paper Time”:
MP: This one is light and easy — a romantic comedy in a song. The paper situation is like a meet cute basically for this sort of impossible and ridiculous relationship that would never happen where you get the girl next door’s mail and then you go over there and she’s like, “Wait, I love you,” or something. But I just thought that since the last song is very sincere, “Golden Hour” is a very emotionally intense song, and I thought that this was a good palate cleanser.
“When You Get Back”:
TH: I feel like we went back and forth on this song, thinking it maybe was too obvious to end the record on. But I’m glad we kind of came back around to it. Kyle wrote this song, and he was very steadfast in certain elements of it that he would not budge on. Usually, Hart will have an idea and we’ll play with it. But there’re parts of this song that Kyle was just like, “I don’t want to change that, I think that’s very important.” Kyle was very devoted to how he wanted this song to sound and the elements that were there.
MP: Yeah, this one is definitely one of Kyle’s babies. I think these are probably some of the best backup vocals on the record. That’s something that we explored more on this record than we ever have before. There’re genuine three-part harmonies on this song. They’re not the star, but I do like that they get a little showcase moment during the instrumental, or during the solo. It was nice to just all be singing this song, because this song shares a lot in common with “Golden Hour” for us, personally. It’s emotional for us, and nice for me to just think about us all singing this, expressing these sentiments together as a band.
Sheer Mag Break Down Their New Album Playing Favorites Track By Track: Exclusive
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