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Interview: Nick DiSalvo of Elder on Omens, Songwriting and More

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As Elder enter what would otherwise be a significant touring cycle following the release of their fifth album, Omens (review here), one can hear all around the band an increasing influential presence on other bands. The work they’ve been doing particularly over the last five years has begun to resonate with other acts now taking elements Elder helped bring to the fore and making them their own. One aspect of Elder‘s work that remains seemingly inimitable to this point, however, is the songwriting of founding guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo, whose linear process brings together what are sometimes seemingly disparate parts — you can hear the stops in songs in places, as if the band were signaling, “Okay, now we go here” — and creating memorable movements out of what are purposefully not catchy choruses in the traditional sense.

In talking to DiSalvo about the new album, I wanted to get more of a sense of where his process comes from and how it has evolved over Elder‘s decade-plus together. The band’s tour plans may be scuffled for the time being due to forces out of their own control, but that does not seem to be hindering the fact that this band is shaping a form of progressive heavy rock in their own image.

Q&A follows here. Please enjoy:

Elder Interview with Nick DiSalvo

One of the most distinguishing facets of Elder is the method by which you write songs. How do songs begin for you? Is there an initial riff or melody that you build out from?

I’ve found recently that we can get more variety out of our songs by working piecemeal on many ideas simultaneously, and then seeing where they converge naturally or can be merged together. I do most of my songwriting at a computer these days, unromantic as it sounds, but I like to think of it as working with an infinite amount of blank canvases. When I’ve got an idea, I’ll plug in a guitar or keyboard and just record it immediately. Then I’ll build on it, fleshing it out with other layers. Sometimes that’ll immediately lead to a new part, or sometimes that’s where the inspiration stops, or sometimes I’ll realize that this is the missing element to a song already in progress. That also means that our songs aren’t being written one-by-one, but developing side by side, which might give the albums a unique flavor as a whole.

In terms of structure, Elder has a more linear style than traditional verses and choruses. How much of that is just what sounds right to you as opposed to a conscious decision?

It’s all pretty much just what sounds right. I like to pack a lot of ideas into our songs and rarely have the time for repeating parts. Instead, it’s more interesting to me to use motifs and recurring themes, changing or referencing them when they return. That’s not to say we couldn’t or wouldn’t use a verse or chorus in our songs if it felt right. I found it really amusing that when we released “Embers” off the new record, some people were complaining that we started using a ‘pop’ song format. Because a chorus appears 2 times in an 11-minute song? It’s apparently become our trademark to never repeat a part, for better or worse.

Are you ever tempted to write a traditional hook, just for the hell of it?

Traditional… maybe not? I don’t know if that would be my strength. A hook like they appear in pop songs wouldn’t work for our band because it just doesn’t fit into the rest of the structure. But I do think that Elder songs have some hooks in terms of catchy elements that, even if they don’t perform the traditional function of pulling a listener into the song at the beginning, they’ll tempt someone to go back and explore the song again, or anticipate that one part they love.

As Elder has grown more complex, you’ve fleshed out melodies and exploratory parts. How does jamming as a full band fit with your more plotted pieces? What specifically does this bring to Omens in your opinion?

We’re still actively trying to figure this out, especially now with a new drummer, and it’s insanely frustrating now with the COVID-19 situation that we have to further wait to get back in the saddle and keep refining ourselves. In general though I think the jamming thing adds a counterweight to all of the other planned parts in an Elder song. It’s the ballad to the rock anthem, in our own fashion. I don’t have a ton of patience for jam sessions and even here I find myself setting boundaries and structures, which maybe we’ll trim back even further in the future… who knows? As far as Omens goes, the jammed-out, floating parts are probably some of my favorite moments of the album. I believe they balance and round out the record as a whole.

Tell me about writing “Halcyon.” What are the song’s origins and what was your vision for it?

That track is a classic case of a song really turning out very differently than expected. “Halcyon” originally began at the now 5-minute mark where the song really kicks in after its extended intro. That was the first part written and intended beginning of the song. At the same time, I was working on another track in the vein of Gold & Silver Sessions that I thought we might interweave into the record as an intermezzo. Mike came up with this guitar lead I really liked, so I slowed it down and built it into that song. Eventually I had the idea to weave the two together and have the jam gradually morph to begin featuring chords from the actual song. When that was established, it was cool because we had a kind of backwards song structure from what we normally do, since these extended jams usually don’t begin our songs. It took legs from there and I was able to write the rest of the song over the next weeks.

“One Light Retreating” seems to touch on more directly emotional ground than Elder has reached before. What is it expressing, instrumentally and lyrically?

In the story told on Omens, the last song describes a kind of last glimpse into existence for humanity on a dying planet. If you were to zoom out, the idea is that you’d see the lights from our planet slowly going out, retreating into dark. The last light retreating is like the last candle of human activity going out. But the mood on the song isn’t sorrow because of that, it’s actually a kind of hope expressed. The lyrics also describe the vegetation growing up again, reaching for the sun and even overgrowing either the bodies or structures left behind by mankind. I think of it as the scene depicted in the cover artwork, where moss is overtaking a ruined statue of a god or important figure. The album’s themes are pretty heavy for me, but the last song is a way of reminding the listener that there’s always light after the dark, or something cheesy like that.

With the band spread out geographically, how has your writing process changed over the years?

It’s been complicated. I’ve bounced around a lot, but we’ve managed to make it work, especially with technology. When working on Lore, I was living and teaching English in Germany at the time. That was the first time I really wrote a solid chunk of a record by myself in isolation, but we still had a pretty collaborative period of revision on those songs when I returned. By the time we were working on Reflections, I had moved again back to Europe and the guys and I would only see each other for tours. That’s where we really perfected the current mode of working, where I’m writing the music and recording it in my home ‘studio’ and sending to the other guys to critique and learn before finally meeting up to live rehearse the material for the studio. We did that with both Reflections and with Omens and it’s been working so far. We just underwent another pretty significant shift though with Matt leaving the band and Georg stepping up, just around the same time Mike decided to stay in Germany too. That means again 3/4 of the band is local and we can actually practice and write collaboratively again.

In general, how do you know when a song is done? Particularly on Omens, with so much lush keys and melodies built out, when is a piece actually finished?

I really like working on my own recordings particularly for this reason – you can not only hone in on all the little elements of each part, but also zoom out and listen to the whole thing. If I feel a song is done, I’ll usually let it sit for a day and then come back with fresh ears and listen to the whole thing. Anything that doesn’t make sense will automatically stick out like a sore thumb. It’s basically this kind of process of revision then until we’re satisfied with it. This is obviously just subject to my taste, some people think we could trim parts etc etc. but I know when I think a song is solid and cohesive.

How do you see your songwriting growing in the future? Do you have an idea yet of where you want to go next or what you’ll take from the experience of making Omens?

Well… I hoped that we’d be on tour for the next half year supporting the record, which not only energizes and inspires us but also gives us time to jam on new ideas and sounds. That collaboration I was anticipating won’t be happening anytime soon. I’m working on new songs in the meantime from home, and I can sense a sound taking shape, but it’s too early to say. I thought for sure after Omens that we’d strip down our approach a bit – I found it kind of exhausting putting in all of these layers – but so far that hasn’t happened in anything new I’m working on. We’ll see in another year or so.

Elder, Omens (2020)

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