10 Questions with ... The Accidentals

1. What make The Accidentals sound so unique?

Sav: We rely on each other to create a balance. That's the key to this band. Our styles of songwriting and arrangement are very different, so when they come together, they create this variation that couldn't happen any other way. For us, it's about the experience and collaboration and trying to learn as much as we can. We want to be able to walk into any room with confidence in our craft, but in the end, we're total nerds that just enjoy learning new things. Every day is an opportunity.

Katie: I don't think there are really any limits in terms of genre or instrumentation. We just really enjoy making music that connects.

2. What music do you all like to listen to when you are relaxing or on the road?

Sav: Right now, I'm jamming to a playlist of Queen, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Kaki King, Vulfpeck, Gabriel Kahane, St. Vincent, Andrew Bird and more. I love music that features technical proficiency, but I also crave lyrical content that brings forth saturated imagery - it's most relaxing for me when I can analyze every piece of a song and find something new in hearing it every time ... which is how I end up obsessing over the same artists for months.

Katie: Generally, you can find us in the van plugged into our respective headphones listening to podcasts, music, etc. I usually have a hard time splitting my focus between music and writing, but sometimes our environment gets chaotic and music helps me tune everything else out. When I'm working, I might listen to The Books, STFKR, The Roots, maybe some Bossa Nova tunes.

Michael: I have really been getting into the new album from The National. It's a good album for the long night drives in the van. I listened back to their whole discography on the drive from Austin to Phoenix.

3. How differently did you all approach this year then you did 2016?

Sav: It's already been an interesting year! We signed with Sony Masterworks on the tail end of 2016, and we put out a new album called Odyssey, which is all about moving forward boldly - not in the absence of fear, but in spite of it. It's the culmination of six years of being a band, and the ups and downs that come with living life in a van and out of a suitcase.

Katie: 2016 was a tumultuous year, we started it by moving on from a production deal and independently recording and releasing an EP, touring 230 shows, signing a label deal, and recording and mixing a full-length album, through periods of global political shifts and lost musical heroes. It was easy to feel exhausted and daunted as 2017 started. We felt like we'd just climbed a mountain, and the truth is that once you finish an album the work really begins. We really had to dig in deep and use our strength to push forward, and we are thankful for our team who has been helping us with the marketing, distribution, booking and press. Now we're able to share our music worldwide and we're making more time to be present and enjoy the ride.

4. Can you recall the moment you all realized that you could really make music together and be this band?

Sav: Katie and I met in our public high school philharmonic orchestra! We were in a classical quartet together, and we also covered Led Zeppelin songs in an after-school club called the Alternative Styles club. We were the only two people in our class to volunteer to play at a music booster's meeting, so Katie came over to my house to rehearse, and we got sidetracked playing the White Stripes instead.

Something about the name we chose really seemed to click with every aspect of who we are. An accidental in music theory is a note that doesn't quite fit in the key signature, but still makes sense. We are a bit genre-less, and we don't quite fit - but we like to think that our music has a life of its own and makes sense. We also are incredibly accident-prone, and we find that most of the "accidents" we get into lead to things that we didn't even know were "meant to be" - much like how we met in the first place.

Katie: Sav and I both have different personalities and musical strengths. Naturally, I love holding down rhythm and creating a harmonic landscape, and Sav has an ear for vocal harmonies and improving solos. The first time we sang together it felt way too easy, at the time I don't think I realized how lucky we were. We really complement each other, and after playing together for six years we've helped each other grow and balance our strengths and weaknesses. It was a slow realization that we could do this for a career ... we had devoted ourselves to the project full-time, but it wasn't until after high school that things started taking off.

5. How do you think your hometown of Traverse City, MI has affected you all and the music that you create?

Sav: We were lucky enough to grow up in a community that is incredibly supportive of the arts. Our schools have music programs that allow kids to try out and choose an instrument to play around fifth grade, which is how Katie and I got started on cello and violin at an early age and our public high school encouraged alternative strings and allotted a budget for odd instruments. There's also a thriving local music scene. We got our start playing coffee houses and breweries (even though we were only teenagers), and eventually we started delving into the session world as a string team, arranging parts and playing on local artists' albums. Many local musicians took us under their wing and gave us pieces of knowledge or genre that inspired us to keep exploring. There's always a collaborative nature, one that we try to carry with us along the road.

Katie: Traverse City, and our network of family and friends, really made us feel supported. There is such a huge music loving community there that I don't think we felt pressured to stick to a certain style of music, and that freedom led us to exploring all genres and mashing a few together.

6. Tell us about the recording of Odyssey.

Sav: Odyssey is the perfect name for this album because recording it was an odyssey all by itself. Some of the songs on it are ones we've played thousands of times, but were unable to release during our time in a production deal. Other songs are so new, we've barely scratched their surfaces. The process of picking and choosing from the numerous amounts of unrecorded songs we wrote between 2013 and now was incredibly difficult, but we chose songs that represented the six-year journey thus far. Some of the songs are about being present and not taking things for granted (but not beating yourself up when you do, because nobody's perfect).

Others are about learning not to fear change. Most of them are about the strength in vulnerability, and how important it is to be authentic and open with one another. In the end, we were surprised that the album had flow and consistency, since there are so many different genres and facets on it - but in recording, we learned to let each song breathe on its own, and found a balance between intentional and organic.

Katie: We started tracking last October, at a studio called Echo Mountain in Asheville, NC. Our goal was to capture some of the energy from our live show, and find a balance between creating huge arrangements and keeping a "live feel." We did most of the basic tracks in two weeks, then after finishing the recording and doing overdubs in Nashville, we started the mixing process. Mixing took the most time, we ended up spending around three months working with engineers to get to a mix and master that best represented the music. It was a really intense process, but we came away with more knowledge about frequencies, arrangement, and trusting our ear.

7. Can you describe what it was like writing the songs "Memorial Day" and "KW"?

Sav: Those are the perfect two songs to choose, since each of us wrote one! Katie and I tend to write separately 99% of the time. The writing is therapeutic for us. It helps us process the road (and life in general) in a way that allows for self-expression and kind of "unclutters" everything. The arrangements, however, involve all three of us -- Katie, our drummer Michael, and me. Katie or I will bring a song to the table and each of us will add pieces to it -- "awe moments," as well call them -- until the song is ready.

"KW" actually stands for Keller Williams, a funk/reggae/blues/jam band guitarist and excellent human being we toured with extensively across the U.S. I was really inspired by his style of playing, and I wanted to incorporate some of it into a song. I'd been playing with the opening riff for about three years, which is rare for me, because I usually knock out a song in about two hours - but the riff didn't fit anywhere until I heard Keller play. It was only then that I knew what to do with it. As far as the lyrics are concerned, it's kind of an anti-bullying anthem. I've been bullied in the past, and sometimes past bullies will come to shows and pretend nothing ever happened. I'm not the kind of person who holds grudges, and I'm willing to forgive a lot of things - but refusing to even acknowledge an abusive history is something that's always bugged me. If you want a fresh start, you first have to give people closure.

Katie: I wrote "Memorial Day" during the summer after my junior year of high school. Sav and I were doing our first mini tour with two friends of ours from Michigan, I had recently ended one long distance relationship and started another one, and one of my friends who I greatly looked up to passed away unexpectedly. Needless to say. I was unsure about what the future would hold, and I'm already the type of personality who worries about things far in advance. Our lives were so busy, and I felt like things were happening so fast, we had moved past what we could control, so on the end refrain of the song, the lyrics "now it's gone" refer to the moments we let go of in order to move on.

8. How was your tour this past summer?

Sav: The tour this summer was great! We played a ton of festivals (we absolutely love festivals), ate great food and met incredible people, and we made friends with a ton of musicians along the way. I have to say, though, it had its own accident; we started out calling the summer tour the "No Fear" tour, but we ended up calling it the "No Gear" tour after we were hit by a tornado halfway through our festival set in Madison, IN. We were then hit by 12 consecutive thunderstorms along the rest of the tour. It was a little out-of-hand for a while, but, luckily, we're back up to speed.

Katie: We did our first mini-tour in Canada! We played a music fest there and ended up pulling off two entire improvised sets with a funk band and a folk band we met there for the first time. It was exciting. I don't think there is a perfect show for us; we're perfectionists so it's tempting to try and control every element, but when we step back and something challenges us it makes for a much more interesting experience for everyone involved.

Michael: We had the chance to play some amazing festivals this summer. One of the best feelings is when you go to a new festival and get to connect with the people from that region. I don't know if there is a recipe for a perfect show, but getting in tune with a new crowd of people is an amazing experience, especially when we get to talk and mingle with the festival-goers after a performance.

9. We are living in a crazy and at times rough world right now, so I am curious how you think being in this band gives you the most joy in life today? Do you think that new music being created today is going to reflect these hard times?

Sav: Writing music is our way of being able to speak truthfully. Everyone in the band is an introvert, which makes this lifestyle counter-intuitive - it involves a lot of socializing, a lot of change and inconsistency, a lot of sharing every part of yourself. It's a ton to process. When we perform, we kind of break down the barrier and use our music as a vehicle for truth. I try to write in a way that is narrative and connective, because I enjoy music that points out something I may have noticed but haven't thought much about. The joy for me comes in the healing process that music provides. There's something really intimate about it. It's a way of banding together in a rough, divided world. The path of authenticity is being paved all around us, and I music and art will continue to call out to change and remind us of universal truths. Often, it is music that is the authentic history of a time/movement.

Katie: We recently did a workshop with the high schoolers at Flagstaff High School in Arizona and it really made my day. When I was in high school I didn't think I could improvise and I felt held back by my social anxiety. Seeing students get comfortable jamming with us or talking to us really gives me hope. I think that music is a tool like any other art form. Everyone is going through their own struggle, and music finds a way to reflect that.

10. What do you hope is the message of your music?

Sav: I hope that people take away the idea that being afraid, being young, asking questions, being vulnerable - it doesn't make you weak. True strength lies in being open with one another, in being honest with yourself and others. It's so much easier said than done, and that's why you have to keep moving forward - even if it's just baby steps. That's what it means to #odysseyboldly.

Katie: Our goal is to be authentic with our music, and hopefully that inspires other people.

Interview by Leah Brundardt