How Computer Built A Collective on Their Debut Station On The Hill
Vancouver based seven piece collective/band, Computer, just released their debut record, Station On The Hill. Jacob Pepin, Ben Lock, and Ricky Sanderson all sat down with REVERIE to chat about it and what’s next.
On what it means to be a collective, Lock explained that they want to keep things open ended. “There’s six of us that play live, but with Hudson [Schelesny], our recording member, we’re seven. And I feel like we have a nontraditional band line up that way,” Locke explained. “And, I mean, we kind of do all the stuff ourselves. All of the video, art, and direction is from Keenan [Olsen] and Charlie [Howell]. And we all pitch in, and we participate in a lot of stuff that we feel is a collective.”
“We are so equipped and super lucky to have an amazing producer and engineer, and also to have graphic design and video editors. Everyone brings such a full skill set to the table outside of whatever instrument we play,” Pepin said.
“I think it’s more of an aspiring collective,” Sanderson added. “We just don’t want to limit ourselves. If someone shows up and they’re perfect for the job, we can always add them in, in whatever respect.”
Computer live at Green Auto. Photo credit: Michael Reid.
Leaving things open to new members isn’t the only thing the band said they’re open to. Lock said that in the future they could decide to do something less musical, or something that adds to the music, but wholly, as a collective, they aren’t tied to any being any one defined thing. Despite their Instagram handle being @computerisaband, Lock joked.
With the amount of different inputs in the band, Lock said the writing process for their debut record—Station On The Hill—was a lot of demoing early on, and writing writing during the recording process. “Early recordings for the songs were there when the band formed, and a lot of it was expanding on and dissecting those ideas and adding new parts,” Lock explained.
As members incrementally joined the project, songs would get new additions, new ideas, and slowly grew into their final form on the record. “We ended up having to rerecord all the songs two times,” Lock said.
Computer live at Green Auto. Photo credit: Michael Reid.
While many of the songs on the record are fully hashed out versions of originals from Lock and Schelesny, some were made from scratch once the band had fully grown into what it is now.
“The Picture” and “Now In A Vacuum” are songs the band noted as being born of the fully formed group together. “We wrote those in rehearsal … with no expectation of where the songs were going. And then just chased it farther and farther until [we] get to the end of the song,” Lock said. And for the most part, the band was able to record many songs in one session, jamming them out to write them.
They said the narrative meanings of songs were found when jamming them as well. Lyrically, Lock said he was writing as a character. “You just feel open to writing, because you’re writing from a character. You learn a bit more about yourself. And I think it was a big element of catharsis for me,” he said. “I’m talking about anxiety and paranoia [in the songs], but also about an overwhelming sense of joy. And, how sometimes happiness can sometimes feel sort of anxiety inducing.”
Lock added that small towns “were also prominent in the narrative. That being how small towns can feel kind of claustrophobic.”
With their debut just releasing this past October 10, the band is already creating new work. “We’re always trying to write new stuff. Who knows when stuff is going to come out. But I think it's a natural direction for us to want to write new music and expand upon demos we didn’t get a chance to get to,” Lock said.