Signalfire's band logo and Wes Nelson '13, member of Signalfire
Wes Nelson, a member of Stonehill's class of 2013, is also a member of the
four man band Signalfire, who just formally released their second album, "Don't
Trust This Storm." With the band's project now featured on Spotify and the
Google music store, the Rolling Stonehill recently caught up with Wes to discuss
Signalfire's latest progress.
RS: How did Signalfire form and how did you guys
come up with the name?
Wes: Signalfire is a music collective of 3 brothers and me(Wes, their cousin). We've been jamming since middle school, in basements, and our first attempts at recording started when I was just a freshman in high school. We've had many different names, each with different meanings... Some that come to mind are Cloud Nine, Rebel PC, and Eight The Flume.. The name Signalfire came about after a long session in the studio when we were in high school.. our stylistically eclectic nature is adopted from the fact that each of us has different taste in music, and the result of this is that each of us brings a different sound to the band.. As much as it may not make sense, we saw our sound's direction as a "fueling of the fire" of many different sounds all coming together, so that prompted one of us(I forget who) to say we were "signaling the fire"...
RS: Who makes up Signalfire, and who plays
what?
Wes: Signalfire consists of the brothers
Hansen...
Adam Hansen: Drums, guitar, vocals, piano,
ukulele, production engineering
Mark Hansen: Guitar, vocals
Chris Hansen: Piano, keys, vocals, trumpet
and their cousin.. me,
Wes Nelson:Guitar, bass, vocals, piano, banjo
RS: What artists out there inspire your band's sound?Mark Hansen: Guitar, vocals
Chris Hansen: Piano, keys, vocals, trumpet
and their cousin.. me,
Wes Nelson:Guitar, bass, vocals, piano, banjo
Wes: Our inspiration is very eclectic, as
I've already stated. I'm very in tune to the indie world, and also inspired by
bands like Incubus, Vampire Weekend, and MGMT.
Chris is an accomplished classically trained
pianist, and he actually never listened to anything but Chopin, Rachmaninoff,
and ragtime until he hit a Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Pepper's phase in
college.Mark is our most gifted song writer, and anything that involves an acoustic guitar and great lyrics keeps him going.
Finally, Adam is a very gifted percussionist and sound engineer, and any heavy music with great percussion, or very finely produced rock music inspires him.
Collectively, our approach is very 'Local
Natives'- esque, where not one song was written by and performed on the same
instruments as any other. But our sound most resembles that of Incubus,
Radiohead, The Killers, and others of the like.
Wes: Yes, our music finally hit the Google music store, Spotify, bandcamp.com, and iTunes late this summer! We're so excited! This album has been in the works for years, and to finally start getting our name out their and get the feedback we've wanted to hear, it's very rewarding!
We did this with Reverbnation Distribution Services, and we can't say enough great things about it!
RS: What surprises can listeners expect on your
latest, "Don't Trust This Storm?" How has the experience of putting the album
together differed from the recording of your last self titled
album?
Wes: On DTTS, listeners will be surprised by quite a
lot actually. Our goal for the album was "pristine production". We actually
spent close to two years in the studio fine tuning details.. and we're very
excited about that because it brings the sound of the album to a whole new level
than we've ever had.Another surprise will definitely have to be the great work of our friend Drew Crook. Drew is featured in vocals on two of the brighter tracks on the album.. and his voice just fit the tracks perfectly. The sound of those two tracks, "Advice Column Letter" and "Skyline", were something totally different than we'd ever done before, and they turned out to be two of the most notable tracks on the album.
DTTS is a greatly different piece of work than
any of our old stuff. DTTS shows the greatest progress the band has achieved in
our 9 or so years together. We finally optimized the use of Cubase 4 in a make
shift studio in the Hansen brother's basement. We also learned a great deal
about production in the process, and it really showed in the final product. Very
happy with DTTS!!
Wes: The future for Signalfire is finally here. The difficulties we face now are that the Hansen brothers currently go to school in Utah at BYU, while I'm here at Stonehill. This has lead me to a much more independent approach to songwriting, which actually resulted in the track "Strawberry Jam", which I wrote freshman year here at Stonehill. Currently, the Hansen bro's have just about completed a new studio in their condo at BYU, and they just sent me some new demos to mess around with a couple of weeks ago. Our goals now are to shamelessly promote DTTS, and also work for a new EP has already begun, which we hope to release early next summer!
RS: Where can we find you online?
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Interview by Rex Macipinlac '13
Images credit to Wes Nelson and Signalfire's media pages