ALLUVIAL FANS
Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? How'd you all get started in music?
Ollie: I started playing the drums when i was ten because my dad played the drums and i wanted to be just like my dad but then i found out my dad had tinea pedis and so maybe i didn’t wanna be exactly like my dad but i still wanted to play drums.
Drew: I remember listening to a Nirvana CD that my uncle burned for me on those walkman CD players when I was 5 or so. That pretty much hooked me. A lot of my dad’s friends and my friends were into music when I was young, so that also inspired me to start playing. I played alto sax and guitar in middle school. I quit alto sax to play guitar in rock n roll bands and in jazz band in high school. I studied music technology at Wayne State until 2015 and have been playing bands around Detroit since 2015. It’s my favorite part of life and culture.
Gilad: I grew up in a musical household. My parents have a gigantic CD collection with tons of classical/jazz/world/folk music and nice speakers in the living room. My mom is a soprano vocalist. My sister grew up playing piano and flute. I started taking classical piano lessons when I was 5. So music has always been a central part of my life and who I am.
Caelin: Both my parents encouraged me to pursue music from a young age; started on piano at 7, cello at 10, and finally electric bass at 11. I more or less dropped the first two and took the bass to college. I studied jazz at University of Michigan and during my time there I got very into math rock. For awhile I played a lot of drum and bass and duo groups in that genre. Now I just write on guitar and play bass with whoever I can.
How did Alluvial Fans come together?
Drew: Well, there’s been a few different versions of the live group at this point. It was always my intention for Alluvial Fans to be an energy-driven, melodic and dynamic rock band. I had the idea around 2014-15. I played in a lot of other bands and wanted to focus on my own songs after giving so much of my musical self to my friends' visions. The first lineup was composed of good friends and room/flatmates Nick Sapounas (bass) and Mike La Bella (drums). Nick’s band at the time was GrayBliss. He also played in Dr. Wolf, and now composes and performs in Torus Eyes. Mike moved to DC in 2019 and has been working on solo music while teaching at the local school of rock. Mike and I played with Nick in GrayBliss and in another band called Honeybabe.
Nick, Mike and I played a handful of Alluvial Fans shows in 2015. A lot of those songs are on our first album “Lag Air”. The project fizzled out as we were all musically spread thin. Mike and I continued with Honeybabe: Matt McBrien (guitar, vox), Danny Despard (bass) and Austin Keith (drums). I also played bass with Taxon Clade: Daniel Ericksen (guitar, vox) and August Leo (drums). Through playing solo sets, I met Gilad and Ollie and we started playing together in 2019. We recorded the second album “Earth to Astronaut” in 2019 and it was more of a collaborative effort than the first one. Alluvial Fans would not exist without all the support from these and other close friends and family. We are better off together.
Our current iteration came together on a fateful occurrence last summer outside of Marcus Market. Caelin Amin (bass, vocals) was inhaling tacos and cigarettes when I ran into him and asked if he might want to join the band. A few weeks earlier, Nick suggested Caelin to me as a bassist as we were looking out across the Keweenaw Bay while working on August’s first feature film called Attack of the Flies. Caelin played with Nick in Dr. Wolf as well. Alluvial Fans has been heavily active since 2019 but we had a two year live gig lull since the pandemic. We’ve only recently started playing shows again and I’m feeling more like myself because of it.
Ollie: Well first i met gilad in israel when I was fifteen years old and we talked about baseball and then later like way later i was playing in a band with a pirate when i met scotty and mikey from maine and they bought a church van so we could go on tour with these guys from texas so i said to gilad who was from detroit lets play a show together when we get to detroit but then the van broke down in florida and we slept at the walmart and had to go back to maine so we drove forever and when we got back i felt sad so i went to detroit anyway and the other bands still played the show and i worked the door and gilad played and drew played and caelin played and that’s where i met drew and caelin because gilad already knew them and gilad said i should move to detroit so i did and then started a band with drew and asked gilad to play with us so he did and then he moved to brooklyn and then caelin started playing with us and that’s how alluvial fans came together.
Gilad: Nothing much to add, Drew and Ollie pretty much have it all covered. Mostly just grateful to Ollie and Drew for believing in my abilities as a bassist when at the beginning I really didn't think of myself as a bassist... more of an electronic musician/DJ. In retrospect definitely one of those butterfly effect/fateful moments and my involvement with the band shaped how I see myself as a performer and musician today, as well as how I feel when I check out shows given how many we played.
Caelin: I know about as much as you, diligent interviewer.
What is something people would be surprised to know about your band?
Gilad: We (were) all geminis ha.
Ollie: The drummer doesn’t even know what he’s doing.
Drew: If there were a band mascot, it’d be a falafel sandwich.
Caelin: Me and Ollie swap mustaches every so often and sometimes Drew doesn’t even know.
Rumor is that you have a new record on the way. Can you tell us about it?
Ollie: Spume is the new record and it’s the best one yet or at least that’s what my dad and my brother say and it’s about the ocean and the tides of our lives and the foam in the ocean cause that’s what spume means it’s like the stuff in the foam or that makes it foamy or maybe it is the foam i'm not sure drew came up with it.
Gilad: It was an insane 180 for me to go from basically just staying home and meditating and riding my bike and keeping myself busy with all sorts of random things that weren’t music to recording an album crash course style in around 10 days. Frankly it took me a few days to get back into the swing of things. Like everything else post-pandemic being in a band again for a second took some getting used to. But overall super cool to hear these songs that we started playing live just before covid hit polished up and in a time capsule. For me a punctuation mark on the end of my time in Detroit for the foreseeable future.
Drew: The pandemic split us up for a bit. Ollie was back in New Hampshire and Gilad and I were locked down in Detroit. I made a lot of electronic solo music during this time. I had 9-10 songs for “Spume” and wrote 5-6 more during this time as well. Ollie came back from New Hampshire and slept on my couch for all of March 2021 while we rehearsed to record “Spume”. We tracked 15 songs live in one week at our practice/studio space. The record ended up being 9 songs but there’s leftovers for an EP or future release or split. We then took a one-week vacation to the Smoky Mountains to step away from it. I finished writing lyrics and recording vocals in the fall/winter. I was in a dark and dissociative place during that time, but music kept me going through 2021, as it does generally. I wish this record was out last year but I'm still proud of it.
“Spume” will be self-released on July 26th. Our release show is July 30th at Ghost Light in Hamtramck. I guess if there’s a theme to this album, it’s the vital role of expression and detoxification through art and the intention of being true with ourselves and others. That’s where the word spume resonated with me for the title. These songs are what was leftover on the surface from things that were boiling underneath. The music is mature and second-nature to me and I never second-guessed it, as I tend to do with lyrics. This time around the lyrics became more grounded and personally emotionally expressive than the last 2 records. I was sad, confused and frustrated with myself for bad coping habits after a break up that hit me pretty hard. Healing did not come quickly but it did with time. I’ve struggled with some form of depression and anxiety for most of my life now. Spiritual practice, friends, and self-producing this record helped as a psychotherapy to untie some of the knots in my head and come to a higher understanding of myself during the pandemic. I see my struggles and life’s challenges as a form of anti-fragility, which create the opportunity for genuine growth. I’m much better these days and grateful to be moving on to new music and be inspired by old and new people in my life.
What are your thoughts on the local music scene? Any favorite bands/venues?
Ollie: I didn’t grow up here and one of the reasons i decided to move here instead of moving back home or going someplace else was the music scene i think it’s real special lots of interesting people doing creative things and making different sounds and i used to go to burts and have pecan pie and listen to the horn players and they’d let me play drums and maybe even sometimes gilad would take me dancing and i’d hear things i never heard before and i wouldn’t even know where the sound was coming from because you couldn’t see the musicians and a man in a white suit would dance all crazy and cool and that would make me feel better.
Gilad: Now that I've been living in Brooklyn for almost a year, I can safely say that I think Detroit's music scene is superior. Though I think that's also a result of me not having found my favorite locals here, and part of that is because of the insane variety of live music available here. In Detroit, the quantity is a lot less but the quality is a lot higher and more consistent, and when you show up to something you can really feel like you're a part of it. Lots of one-off DIY stuff in unusual spaces. A healthy respect for the city's Black musical foundations (gospel/jazz/motown/techno) and a predisposition to exploration and experimentation is a current that runs through all the good stuff in Detroit. Recently I heard an old poet say "sometimes you just walk into the real thing." I would get that feeling more in one month in Detroit than I have in one year in Brooklyn.
Caelin: I have freelanced as a bassist in this scene for a few years now and one thing I can confirm is that there a lot of different types of gigs to be had which in turn, would mean there’s a diversity to it. I think that’s nothing but a good thing.
Drew: I’m inspired by the plethora of predecessors and contemporaries here in Detroit. Grateful to be a thread of the city’s musical lineage. A lot of raw talent spanning many genres. Friends and family from outside Detroit will emphasize the music scene, so that’s a good sign I suppose. I think the cheap rent (for how long?) and geophysical space of the city allows for more creative incubation. I think about the concept of emptiness a lot, physically and psychically, and how that space in this city nurtures new growth and ideas. I also sense a lot of us are alienated from nature and existentially lost in this volatile post-industrial modern age, me being one of them, and turn to friends and strangers in the music/art/food/party community for a sense of comradery, purpose and solace. There are many great bands and venues, but I don't feel obligated to name any. Although I will say house shows are my favorite.
Do you have any favorite gig memories you can share?
Gilad: My favorite gig was at a local artist residency/gallery space called Spread Art around Woodbridge. Every band that day -- Imaginatron, Cookie Tongue and Favi Demacho -- really brought something special and had a super unique performance style. I feel like I return to that gig a lot in my head as the gold standard for a good bill. Also the space was far more DIY and intentional than a random dive bar trying to pedal alcohol.
Caelin: Pretty much any gig where the crowd all dances in a line, I think that’s the best vibe. Weirdest vibe was a nude resort I played at on the west side of the state. Let's say the band wasn’t the only thing swingin’ that night!
Drew: There’s two that come to mind for me. We had a group of people dressed as superheroes from the League of Enchantment hop on stage with us at Ferndale DIY fest in September of 2019. They danced to an early version of “I Am Now” which is on the new record. The other one was recently at PJs Lager House where someone in the crowd was headbanging in the front row on their knees like a dolphin having an out of body experience. Later found out his brother has the same name as me, but he said he loved me more than his brother. Still processing that one.
Ollie: Everytime my friends come to a show is my favorite because i don’t get to see them enough and everyone is so busy all the time but i love them so much so those are the best memories but one time like drew said these superheroes danced with us on stage and you could tell how much the kids liked it because they felt like they could do anything and maybe i felt that way too a little bit even if i don’t like to say it and that’s how i want everyone to feel so that’s a favorite memory too.
Besides the new record, what are you all working on next?
Drew: 4th record, vinyl/merch and maybe touring in the fall. Most of the live set is currently newer songs that aren’t off of “Spume”. Caelin has been a creative catalyst and an amazing addition to the band. I can’t stop writing as of recently and find a bit more satisfaction in composing and recording than playing live. We tracked drums for the 4th record last month. I’m trying to get in the habit of recording material while it’s fresh. I have another solo-electro album that I want to finish up this year as well. We’ll also be settling into a new practice space at the Russell after 7 years at the bagley vision building. Besides music, I’d like to take some more camping, kayaking and bike trips with friends and maybe have a vacation to simply relax.
Ollie: Ya there’s so much going on all the time we just keep doing things i am trying to keep up with my yiddish translation work and my job making solar systems and also i have anxiety and depression and lately i have been learning about single use plastics so i watched all these videos about the history of plastic and did you know by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish and that plastic isn’t really recycled just downcycled and only nine percent gets downcycled anyway and that the plastic industry just tells us to recycle so we feel like plastic waste is our problem and that's how they continue to produce plastic without creating outrage so i am trying to eliminate as much plastic from my life as possible so if anyone knows any cool bulk grocery stores let me know also i got this cool camping mug and a camping silverware set that folds in like a pocket knife and i can keep them both on my keychain so i don’t have to use plasticware isn’t that neat but if you meant what are we working on next in terms of music then a new album and maybe a video.
Gilad: These days, I've just been settling into my new home and figuring out how to live here. Haven't honestly had a whole lot of room for creating music, which is something I struggle with sometimes. I have been running a beat making workshop through the organization I volunteer for called 8 Ball Community, and much more active as a radio/club DJ, which is something I always find a little bit easier to do when I don't have time to practice creating music and improving as an instrumentalist. I also wrote a bunch of poetry in my notes app when the inspiration would strike me walking around the city. I've been dreaming about taking a retreat somewhere remote just to create.
Caelin: Working on a solo album with my best friend as the engineer which is wonderful, that’s my main personal project. Other than that, I live with my wonderful partner so moving in together has been another project, but a fun one. Would like to have a home studio set-up eventually. Besides that, just writing and playing when I can and selling marijuana legally.
How do you feel about the future of music/art?
Gilad: I don't like thinking about the future. Man plans and God laughs, an old yiddish saying that Ollie taught me. Music/art will continue to be created. Fuck fame and recognition just make what you need to make, share it with the people you love, and move on. And if you're not making anything then be nice to yourself about it. There are no quotas or requirements to creating, just your own drive set against the circumstances and realities of your life.
Caelin: Sorta with Gilad on this one, I don’t enjoy thinking too hard on the future. There is in fact so much music that’s already been so much art created that looking into the past is more interesting to me a lot of the time, I rarely keep up with new releases. Sometimes I wish I listened to things as they came out, but a lot of the time I prefer going back to something without current opinions affecting what I think about it; time is the best palette cleanser. As far as the future goes, I only hope that whatever I can accomplish in the current time can be enjoyed/discovered in it just as easily.
Ollie: I don't think anyone can stop art from happening it doesn't matter how bad they want because art is so important to so many people and some people even care more about art than eating food or having a place to live but it does make me sad that artists don't have enough time for art because of everything else they have to do and i wish more people wanted to give artists what they need to do their art because it would make the world way better.
Drew: Mostly optimistic. I think it will probably serve us in the future as it did in the past, as a transcendent quality of expression that is a definitive trait of humanity. At the same time, we are living in a world of omnipresent capitalist commodification that threatens art’s integrity and directs its energies towards selling products. That is not the point. It is to express yourself and go deeper into your feelings. It is to question, perhaps without any answer. Does touring make sense in a world of fossil fuel addiction? Are money and music ethically compatible? How does my art contribute to the rich lineage of music and human culture? Creating and sharing art to me is an act of vulnerability and celebration. I’m excited by the idea of cooperatively owned venues and event spaces that can double as community organizing centers. Like I mentioned above with my earlier bandmates, I’ve been able to make and record music because we all teamed up. Power in numbers made the practice space and recording gear viable. I feel empowered without being indebted. Things are tough when you’re alone. Life is much easier and rewarding when you team up and communicate with your peers and loved ones.