INTERVIEW: Racoma
RACOMA talk about their quiescent new record and the difficult circumstances that led to its creation.
In the span of about four years, Racoma have lived multiple lifetimes. They’ve prevailed through the nebulous early days of simply being a band; they’ve managed a brief flirtation with national attention; they’ve racked up hundreds of thousands of streams on the strength of their music. That music, from the dusty folk of their debut EP to the sunlit alt-country of This Front Room, hits some kind of agreed-upon sweet spot, and they still stand among the strongest Seattle releases from the last few years.
Racoma released This Front Room in May of 2020, two months after COVID shut down the country. Since then, a lot has changed both within and outside of the band, so much so that the group behind Good a Place as Any, their second LP, feels almost like a different Racoma. That original dustiness has been replaced by fog and mist, and songs that used to bounce and gallop now glide by like ghosts. Even Glenn Haider’s voice, once the yearning nexus of their sound, has been shaped into a chilling, spectral whisper. It’s a sea change for the band, albeit one that has possibly yielded its most rewarding release yet.
We took the time to ask the group about their new record, as well as the circumstances that led to their shift in sound.
I wanna start by collecting a little bit of your origin story. Where’d you guys start? Where'd you guys all meet?
Glenn: It was the end of 2015, Sean was 2016. We both worked at Apple, and we transferred to his store. I had a buddy at the time, we played bass and we were looking for members, and me and Sean pretty much hit it off and we started sending like demos pretty quickly. And then we were like, "Yo, let's make music together, this would be sick,” because Sean moved out here for music, I moved out here for music.
Where'd you guys move from?
Glenn: I'm from Jersey. Sean's from California.
Sean: From the Bay Area, yeah.
Was the band just you and Sean to start?
Glenn: My buddy Anthony ended up playing bass with us for a while, so it was us three to start, and we were just kind of writing a ton. We actually ended up going to Vashon [Island] quite a bit since Anthony lived on Vashon. He knew somebody who had an Airstream that they were getting rid of, and it was on Racoma Beach. We grabbed it, brought it to a friend of ours' spot and built it out there, and then ended up just playing and whatnot. That's where we came up with the name Racoma. It has nothing to do with Tacoma. It’s not "rock and roll Tacoma."
Sean: It was funny because for the first three months it felt like we were building a camper - like an Airstream trailer - more than playing music, for sure. So we always have a running joke, or we did at the time, that we're gonna just make Racoma a construction business.
The Racoma EP came out in early 2018. I remember hearing somewhere that NPR picked it up at some point. Do you remember what happened around that time?
Sean: Two years in a row, we submitted entries for the NPR Tiny Desk Contest. The first year they did a little weekly highlight that included us. The second year we got to open for the winner, Quinn Christopherson. That's our brush with NPR.
I relistened to This Front Room today, and that record has held up extremely well. It also sounds super different from the stuff that y'all are putting out nowadays. But also, when that record came out in 2020, it was a totally different time. Obviously everyone has their own pandemic story, and it did come out around the time of the pandemic, but do you remember what was going on when that record was released?
Glenn: So Sean and his wife, me and my now ex-wife, and Elliot who was playing drums all lived in the house. It was kind of sick because all of our gear was set up all the time and we'd just go down and play. I think we just were like, “Let's make a record." We just had the space and the time.
Sean: We also wrote a lot of those songs with the purpose of playing a live show. Our goal was to have a certain set length so we could just play a bunch of shows and get out there more.
I’m assuming that didn't happen.
Sean: Well, actually, we played a lot of those songs a long time before they were recorded and put out, so in a weird way I feel like those songs got to have their time, even though it's backwards of the way that normal people normally do it.
A lot of your music was written and recorded in the space that you all shared together during that time. How long did y'all live together for?
Glenn: Two years?
Sean: Yeah. I think it was a little over two years.
When did that end?
Sean: Right before the pandemic, we moved out. My wife and I moved into our place in February of 2020. It was like right when lockdown was starting.
I wonder about an alternate future where once the pandemic happened; if y'all were still living together, how that would've affected your music.
Sean: I've wondered that occasionally. I feel like we would've driven each other crazy. I remember we had that Snowmageddon week where people couldn't leave their house cuz everyone was snowed in, and we were half driving each other crazy and half having a lot of fun. I don't know about like the several months of quarantine though, that might have been a lot.
Glenn: I feel like everybody either had a baby or got divorced. Sean had a baby, and I got divorced.
After This Front Room you put out a few songs and then an EP, just three songs. Listening to that EP, it feels like a really clean transition between the rockier sort of folk and this almost sort of darker, gloomier sound that I feel like embodies this particular record. Was that a conscious transition, or is that just sort of what ended up happening?
Glenn: We just wrote a bunch in preparation for a record and I think those three just didn't quite right on the album. It's actually funny because we did talk about kind of how that is kind of like a nice transition. It feels like a step to the album. But we kind of put the EP out just because we liked the songs but they didn't really fit anywhere. We thought we should just put 'em out and not expect too much from ‘em: just like, you know, they're there and we like 'em and that sort of thing.
So you were working on this record around that same time?
Sean: A lot of this material was written starting in the pandemic, but most of it was done around the same time, during this nine-week span when we were recording in a cabin near the North Cascades.
This was Forest Recorders.
Sean: Yeah, Forest Recorders. We kind of came out of that experience with a bunch of songs and decided what to do with them from there.
Tell me about that place. How did you decide to record there?
Glenn: We had a friend who'd been housesitting a bunch of houses and I was like, "Damn, I wanna do that. I wonder if there's like a place where I can do that and get paid. I don't really want a job right now.” There was this one website called Trusted House Sitters, and on it there was this amazing spot. At the time I talked to my wife and I was like, "We should go out there, you know, it's the pandemic," and she was like, "Eh, I don't know." But then I showed Sean and Spencer [Templeton] the spot and I was like, "What do you think, should we hop on this?" We kind of went back and forth, but we were pretty excited about it.
Instead of going through the website, I just went online and found the person who owned it and reached out. I was like, "Hey, I don't really wanna pay the $100 fee to sign up for this website. We're musicians, you're a writer. This seems like the perfect thing for us." And they responded and they were like, “Well, you should go through the website, but we love you and we would love to connect," that sort of thing. I think the rest is kind of history.
It was pretty amazing because we found out later on her husband, who was a carpenter, was also a musician and had a ton of recording gear. We were like, "What the hell? This is like the weirdest trip ever."
Sean: And out of the 80 applicants, they picked us for some reason. I think it was because they knew we were intending to make music out there and they were into that mission.
So you spent nine weeks there. When was that specifically?
Sean: Did we start in April and leave in like June?
Glenn: End of March to June?
Sean: Yeah, that sounds right.
That was this year?
Glenn: Last year.
And that was all songwriting and recording?
Sean: I would say we left there with the songs written, but not everything recorded. Most of the recording - the live basics or the louder things like drums - were done in the cabin.
Speaking of drums, I've noticed that compared to your previous work, this one features drums a lot less. Maybe that's just because it doesn't feature Eliot [Stone] anymore, maybe it's just because that's what the material called for. Who played drums on this record?
Sean: Spencer. He played bass on This Front Room, and then when Elliot left we transitioned to Spencer hopping on drums. That's kind of his role now, which I think is more natural for him. It's definitely his passion. He's a great drummer. We kind of put him in the bass role, but if he were to pick, he’d be a drummer.
Let’s talk about the record. The one thing that strikes me first and foremost is how monochromatic and black and white it feels and everything around it feels. The single art, the album art, the titles, they all feel a lot more muted to me. It feels more representative classically, I guess, of this particular area.
Glenn: I think the music just naturally moved that way. I think we were all in transitional periods and everyone was kind of on different wavelengths, and the music we ended up creating was very much like...it felt like that at times. I was going through some hard stuff. Sean was in preparation to having a baby, so a lot of stress there. Spencer was going through some stuff as well. So I don't know, I think the music just kind of happened and then we were like...
I think Sean and Spencer, you guys were pretty into black and white film for a while, right? I mean, you still probably are, but I guess you could talk more about the film and stuff.
Sean: Well, my dad's a photographer, so I have always had kind of a secondary passion for photography, but I hadn't really been taking pictures at all. Spencer kind of got into film - or got into it again, he'd also been taking photos for a while - so it sparked this random phase of all of us being really into taking pictures on 35mm. I forget how the idea came up, but we just thought like, “Let's all shoot the same film stock around where we live and come up with an image from each of us that will be the single art.
There was an Instagram post on the day of the album’s release that alluded to a period of "transition and uncertainty, grieving and growing.” If what I'm hearing is correct, it just meant that there was this period where you were unsure whether or not wanted to continue being in a band. Could you expound on that a little bit, if you want to?
Glenn: When we were there for nine weeks, it was pretty hard for all of us to connect. I think we were all just on different wavelengths. A lot of the times when we'd play music, It was not as fun as it used to be. It was like tougher, harder, for lack of a better word.
Sean: I think what happened was that we are all dealing with pretty heavy changes in our lives that that made us need to rely on our friendships more, but we were all in such different places that we couldn't really be there for each other as much as we had in the past. We were all just processing the changes we were each individually going through. To be vulnerable and play music and get through decisions with the music was more challenging than it had been. It was also the isolation: being out there and being forced to process what we were all facing. It was kind of the perfect concoction of heavy struggle with the music. It was a dream scenario, but it was also very hard timing.
But after that experience we kind of got back to a place where we could focus on our friendships. I think we all decided that we love each other and that's kind of what drives our band rather than whatever other reasons you could be in a band for.
Of the record’s ten songs, are there any that speak to you personally as your favorite or the most meaningful from that session?
Glenn: For me, “Everything is Now” is my favorite track. I think it was my turn to do vocals on it, and I had a version where everyone was like, "It's good." And then I went back-
Sean: You should rewind. Glenn was playing this idea one morning and it was sounding really cool, so we were like, "Let's work on that today." We went and recorded guitars and stuff, but then by the time we got to vocals, you had forgotten what you were singing in the morning.
Glenn: And then I remember the line - it was a different line. I tried to record it and it didn't really hit, so I was like, "Okay, I'll go work on it again." Then I came back with another version, and Spencer and Sean were like, “Ehhhhhh.” Which, to me it's like, “I know you're right," but I just didn't wanna hear it in the moment ‘cause I thought I had it.
I just deleted all the vocals and just did it again, and I think within twenty minutes it kind of poured out. I think it really encapsulated how I was feeling in that moment with divorce and shit, the sadness and grief. It's rare, but sometimes music could really just...I don't really take credit for it almost. It's like it happened to me. That song feels like it happened to me, or it took less of me, if that makes sense.
Sean: "Everything is Now" is definitely up there for me, I would agree with everything Glenn said. I think the way Glenn feels about “Everything is Now” is how I feel about "Eloska". The music for that came super naturally for me towards the end of our stay there, I wasn't like super confident in it, but then I heard Glenn sent his idea for vocals in it and that was probably the first time with something that Glen wrote - and honestly, I don't even do this with music or movies that much - but it just made me cry instantly.
And it just happened that the people who lived above us were outta town that weekend, so I was able to hone in on guitar parts for it and finish it all soon after reacting to what Glenn had sent. And I feel that Spencer was able to lock into the emotional build of that song too, with what he was going through. It just feels like a song where we all kind of tapped into the same energy for it.
When you say Glenn “sent his vocals," you mean writing through the Internet, the way that pretty much everybody did during the pandemic.
Glenn: Yeah, that's how we were doing in the pandemic. I think we've always kind of done that.
Sean: We just relied on that more with the pandemic, both before the cabin and then after the cabin, finishing up some ideas that started there.
Glenn: I think that’s a really good situation, at least for you and I, Sean. We like to lock the door and do our own thing. I never know like what emotion's gonna come out, so I always want to just be with myself so I can work through what the hell I’m saying to express what I’m feeling. And I think you probably feel the same way, right? With guitar?
Sean: Totally. I think having your own process with it helps you go at whatever pace you want. It helps you really figure out what the song needs and what the emotion is, how what you're doing will fit or contribute in some way to the mission of the song. There's a fun energy to doing a song live and quick in the same room, and that's been really fun for us lately. But there's also definitely something to be said for digesting something by yourself.
One last thing: Good a Place as Any dropped early this month. You got one show coming up. It's at the Crocodile with Deep Sea Diver. When was the last show you guys played?
Sean: I think it was The Clock-Out Lounge, right before quarantine.
Glenn: I wanna say it was 2020. We're all slightly petrified. I don't even remember what it feels like to have that feeling. It just feels like it was like a different version of me that played music at one time, you know?
Sean: We're also a different band now. It's all new material, it's a new lineup, some of us are slightly different roles. It feels like we’re starting over, for sure.