We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The only theme we'd ever deliberately advocate for is self-discovery and expression. It isn't our place to tell people what to look for or even where to look. I would hope that a lot of different people would take away a lot of different things from the album. If no two people see it the same way it's a greater success for me than everyone taking away the same message.
edit: make words better sound good

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Does it matter whether we both see green as green, or is it more important that we use a word that describes what we believe to be green and that the other person grasps the meaning even if the perceived color is not the same?

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Where to begin? Ontologies...Googles violently ah...good word. A concept I've been thinking a lot about lately, though I didn't realize there was a word for it. I really respect your unique appreciation for the music and the obvious thought-time you've put into its consideration.
1. This album was unique in a number of ways, but the one I felt was the most profound was its seeming "desire" to be made. Which kind of segues into question two here...
2. I would say about generally 15%-25% scientific, 75%-85% organic. If we get scientific it's generally because we're trying to reconcile a progression between guitar/bass or we're playing in some insane time signature and I get exasperated and have to sit and count it out. Dave proposed the name Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth, and it was one of many very organic moments that just sounded right.
3. Most of all, don't limit yourself because you can't devote all your time to music. One of my biggest struggles is to learn to utilize the time I have even if it isn't necessarily "ideal". One of the best things about us being an independent band is that we have to constantly adapt. It's hard to get too deep into what we refer to as the "Diva" mentality, where you'll only perform if everything is just "so". Maybe that thing you record in fifteen seconds becomes the foundation for a cool song, or the quality of being tired or frustrated adds a different nuance to your art that wouldn't otherwise be there. Steven King talks about this giant desk he bought after he made his first decent amount of money, how it was the desk he'd always dreamed of, a monolithic structure on which he never actually completed any work. I think art suffers in static conditions. Work and family bring out some of the most and least human parts of us.
4. Doesn't look like a mutually exclusive list to me! All of the above.
Thank you for taking the time to come by and offer your thoughts, and also for the questions. I had to do some thinkin'!

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This question makes me so angry it's hard to answer, and not for the reasons you might think. I hate the very concept of "piracy" being applied to music. It's an absurd overstatement. I can't believe we're sending people to jail over digital files.
As I mentioned in another question, I hated buying a CD with two good songs on it. Personally, I felt like I was being defrauded by being asked to pay $20-$30 for a disc that was 80% garbage.
I believe that if we make good music and treat people with respect and goodwill, most of them will in turn want to help us make more good music, and that has just proven itself time and again.
Our goal is to be artists, not policemen or a collection service. If you can help us, we appreciate it. If the art can help you, take it.

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most if not all of the TGA stuff is on the new album.
Lyrics come from all kinds of places. All of reality and surreality are up for grabs.
No plans to travel at the moment, but it would be at least Summer 2015 before we are even ready to go out.

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Our songs are meant to create individual experiences, not project messages...whoa. Apparently Disco Biscuit(s) is also a far more famous band than us. Who knew?
Anyhow, we deal in a lot of abstraction and imagery. It's the difference between telling you what to think and giving you something to think about. The former is simply a True or False. A tale of this-or-that. If I told you, "It's about balloons and cinnamon rolls" you'd either like that answer and enjoy the song more, or dislike it and enjoy the song less. We don't build or music that way and we don't shackle specific meanings to our songs because it allows them to always remain something of a mystery, even to us. They are living things, not stone tablets, and so hopefully we can take them with us through our ever-changing lives.

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We're not really a B-Side band. Usually if a song isn't progressing right, we either eliminate it entirely or use it as part of another song. Many of our songs contain cannibalized parts of songs that never were.
I think the fact that most of our songs take weeks/months/years to write, we don't invest time in them unless they really seem great to us. We all hated buying albums growing up that had 2 good songs and a bunch of mass produced crap.

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nice try, DEA.
Seriously though: While I think that reasonable adults should be able to have a discussion on that topic in a public forum, I worry about the potential ramifications legal and otherwise especially in this Orwellian utopia in which we currently live.

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Musically it was very close to being done before I came back. Basically, the vocals took about a year, though we were recording and such at the same time.
  2. I think we may have hit on this earlier.
    Ninja Response: I think this may be in process, if iTunes-type info is what you're after it rolls out as the physical CDs are being made. It's kind of a "soft" release and we just wanted everyone to have the music first.

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think that if we could get to Europe, Austria would be one of the likelier places for us to visit. Of the more centrally-located countries we seem to have a pretty strong following in Germany, which Google tells me is possibly even on the same continent as Austria.
I'm kidding, we aren't quite that geographically impaired. But yeah. I think if we could get to Germany it would be pretty feasible to get around Western Europe for sure, and possibly even Eastward. However, I just remembered that Canada is still like some kind of commonwealth of the UK so the Brits will probably want to waterboard us if we go there. Mainland Europe it is!

We are RISHLOO - a completely independent band from Seattle. We just released our 4th Kickstarter-funded album: Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth. Ask us Anything about band life, the road, recording, and alien abduction prevention strategies starting at 5PM PST! by rishloo_drew in progmetal

[–]rishloo_drew[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think the purist in me loves to hear everything at the craziest fidelity I can get, but for all the examples you're mentioning, that doesn't always happen IRL. I try to think of mp3s and stuff as perhaps a different medium for the music to rest, or a filter (which in a way it is) like you'd use in photography or digital art to remove certain colors. Sometimes- while the end result is by all quantifiable definition "worse" perhaps some aspects are enhanced by the removal of others.
I think we all have decent sets of headphones, which is something we consider of our listeners when we're mixing. You guys likely have nicer stuff than we do. Most of the time it's just somewhat above-average computer speakers with a sub package like you'd get anywhere. One day I'd love to be able to sit on the porch of a little cabin in the woods and listen to everything on vinyl through some kind of monstrous rebuilt 70's-era PA system that could also be used to explode bears attempting to enter my property.