Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
“Sometimes you slow down,” Shawn Marom sings on “Blue Light,” a single from Cryogeyser’s self-titled new album, out today. It’s one of the most instructive lyrics on Cryogeyser, too, in terms of piecing together where the band was at during its writing and recording. The album was written over a nearly five-year period that saw lineup changes and life changes; appropriately, much of the album is Marom’s attempt at turning “shame into something shimmery and hopeful–playing like myself and no one else.” It’d be a brash sentiment if the songwriting didn’t hold up, but Cryogeyser is the LA band’s best material yet; the coupling of soft, hypnotic “Blue Light” and the grungy single “Fortress” is a beautiful illustration of Cryogeyser’s range.
Elsewhere, the elliptical “One” and the colorful “Blew It” highlight Marom’s ear for melody, wrapping sneakily catchy hooks in gritty, ’90s alt licks. The band goes full pop on closer “Love Language,” one of the best tracks Cryogeyser’s ever put out: “my love language / crying in the shower” turns into “my love language / singing in the shower” by the end of the song, a fitting celebration of how far they’ve come. We spoke with Marom about the writing of Cryogeyser, the band’s new lineup, and the struggles of being a young band in the attention economy.
What kind of music listener would you say that you are?
I think people who I know who don’t make music, they’re really fans–they’re happy to stand in the back and experience a concert. Even when I’m on tour, I’ll watch the other sets four times in full, maybe five, but otherwise I’m outside smoking or just chilling. I remember being that kind of listener. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the LA scene collapsing during COVID. I feel like making music makes you jaded–at least for me. I don’t have the attention for a whole show. Maybe it’s ADHD, or maybe my palette’s not there. I listen to the same five albums. I love going backwards, discovering things I still don’t know from the past. I did like the new Sabrina Carpenter, though, and Bladee.
That’s an interesting perspective. Do you think it’s related to making music, having that as such a large part of your life? You don’t have attention outside of creating your own music?
I was just talking to someone about the bitterness of being thirty and making this kind of music when no one thought it was cool. I was doing it in 2019–no one thought it was viable! But a part of me can’t keep up. I have no attention span, and I’m not filled in on memes. I don’t have enough money to buy concert tickets, and no one’s buying physicals, so where am I finding things? I went to the New School, studying music–but even when I go to shows, I don’t have any attention span! I don’t think it’s so much about the making music as much as the way we’re given music–what’s it doing to our attention spans? People make albums so quickly these days, and there’s no time behind it. I can hear when someone’s soul’s in it. There’s a few bands I can go to the show, be moved to my core. Before TikTok and Instagram became the only way to encounter music, I saw bands who shocked me. I don’t see those bands having a bajillion people at their shows, though. I’m a victim of it, but I’m also a perpetrator! I’m outside smoking cigs, and the person on stage is giving it their all. It takes a lot to go to a show beginning to end, and it takes a lot to listen to an album beginning to end. People might turn off my album before getting to the best song–which is the last one!
I’m glad you bring “Love Language” up, in particular. Why do you say that’s the best song?
Someone once said, “You hate your art because it looks like you.” I think I finally got one song–it’s produced by Zach and our friend Rider–I wrote the guitar, but my hands are so out of it that I can listen to it and it’s barely me. So much of my music, especially my early music, is so much of everyone around me letting me do what I want. Zach [Capitti-Fenton, drums] and Samson [Klisner, bass] really understood my influences. Zach was valuable in that he’d just ask, “Where’s the bridge?” He’d say, “You’re inspired by these bands, but where’s the bridge?” I listen to these songs, and they’re still me, but they brought so much to it. “Love Language” is a weird one. I know it could’ve been a pop song–I could’ve taken the easy route! I could’ve been a hyperpop sensation. I made some hyperpop songs with my old bassist [Will] Kraus, and they’d rock everyone’s shoes. But for now, “Love Language” is the Easter egg. It’s so far removed from the person I am that for once I can hear myself. I’ll like that one forever.
You’ve got a song on here called “timetetheredforever.” Why did you decide to include that on here when you’ve got “timetetheredtogether” on your last album? What’s the relationship there?
It’s the same idea. I sent “timetetheredtogether” to my ex, and he said, “This is your ‘Across the Universe,’” and I never finished it. On this album, “timetetheredforever” is just the chords from “Sorry.” Zach pushed for it to be on the album–an acoustic song without drums! Those two are the same even though they’re not. It’s this unfinished thing you want to play again. It’s personal. I think that’s why the album’s self-titled. It’s a variety pack of me being in a moment. It’s not conceptual album–that’s why there’s no title. It’s literally about me. I feel like those are the most untouched songs. I let them just exist as the rawest parts of me. I’m also very self-referential, lyrically. It’s of the emotional world and not the tangible world. I think Cryogeyser is for Cryogeyser fans. I want Swifties. I want people finding the Easter eggs. If there’s ever a Cryogeyser song about you, you’ll know. No one else will know, but you’ll know. I have ADHD, but it’s my superpower. I never forget anything–it’s awesome.
Was that intentional choice, for that reason, to reuse the “Sorry” chords in “timetetheredforever”?
I was in the tuning, and I think that’s how a lot of the early Cryogeyser songs went. I didn’t think too hard about how things would sound. It was really expressive. It’s a link back to that. It’s not the exact same thing. It is, but it’s not. The thing with this album is there was so much consciousness after the fact. Zach’s great at looking at my music and asking, “How do I elevate this without changing it?”
This is the first material you’ve done with Zach and Samson. How did they end up in the band? I was always under the impression you pretty much were the band.
I didn’t want to be the band anymore. I said to them a long time ago that working with them was the first time Cryogeyser felt like a band. Samson joined after Kraus left. I was going on tour with Horse Jumper of Love a month and a half before Kraus left, and I literally called Samson. He’d just been fired, so he brought his car. It was a ragtag team going on tour with my favorite band–I love Horse Jumper of Love so much. Zach joined in another period where I just wanted a band. I’ve known Zach for a long time, and he started jamming with me and Samson, and the music sounded exactly how it did in my head. I trapped him!
How long has Cryogeyser been done?
I could’ve put out two singles and then just the album. Maybe then I would’ve gotten onto the ’90s legacy tours I wanted. I’m trying to just let reality happen. It’s been coming out fucking forever.
But it’s out on Valentine’s Day, and there’s a song called “Cupid,” so it works.
I’m not in a very lovey-dovey mood these days! I’m just excited for the album to be out in the world. I’m excited for people to hear “Mountain.”
Why did you choose “Mountain” for the Wednesday feature?
It’s my song, and Karly [Hartzman] and Jake [Lenderman] were in town, and I was getting really stressed out. I was shopping the album around and worried that no one would give me the money. Karly was like, “You want me to sing on it?” She did it over the phone in two takes! It was perfect. It speaks more to our friendship in general. People love to talk about me and Karly–we’re just girlies who went to Jewish summer camp who can’t believe people give a shit about our music. We played their first LA show, and I’ve admired Karly for a long time. I think we have the same hopes for music–just to be a great rock band and elevate important things. Karly’s way better at that than me–she’s very powerful, very political. I didn’t want my whole album to revolve around this track with my bestie, but it’s the only Cryogeyser song–it’s still about someone I was in love with–it is about a friend of mine who moved in with me after a breakup. That breakup with my friend was harder than any breakup in my entire life. To have Karly on that song was so special. Everyone has a story about how others access their creativity, I think, but I just see a lot of myself in Karly, and I think we save a lot of our emotion for the stage. I think there’s an earnestness we share. I can’t see myself in an Adele album, even though “Chasing Pavements” is the best song ever written. I can’t see myself in Beyoncé–mostly because I’m not Beyoncé.
If you went back to the Shawn putting out Glitch in 2019 and played this album for them, how do you think that Shawn would react?
I’d say, “Bitch, why didn’t you learn your lesson? It gets better, but you should learn about your attachments! You’re writing the same song over and over! Hey babe, he’s coming back–and you should probably not do it.” But I did it, and then I recorded two more albums. I’d actually look back further, though, and I’d go back to me performing “The Only Exception” in my mirror pretending it’s a stadium, and I’d say, “People are going to care about what you’re doing.” Then I’d tell Glitch me that people are still going to come see it solo, and that this album was done by you and your bandmates–you never needed a label or a million dollars. All you needed was the people who’d believe in the vision. Machines are machines, but people are people.
Cryogeyser is out now.
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Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
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