Inside the Creative Process Behind sace6’s Album ‘brutalist’
sace6, the duo of Sace and Noah Thomas, are touring the country supporting nothing, nowhere. Taking some time out from their busy schedule, the alt-rock act opened up about the influences behind their upcoming album brutalist, their songwriting process and several facts about their new record you probably didn’t know.
Interview Janine Morcos // Image supplied
Image supplied
What were the main influences behind the making of your upcoming album, brutalist?
Sace: Ooh, on a tip of movies, I feel like, and I feel like this is another thing where me and Noah both have our own influences, I feel like for everything. And that just kind of goes back to the way that we both write on our own. So both of the feelings that we get from either movies or music or the outside world, we both apply to it on our own.
But I mean, we can just go down the list. I feel like with movies for me, anything on that ‘90s romcom tip like Notting Hill, Autumn of New York, Before We Go, just all movies like that for me just devastate me. And I love being able to get in a zone where I can sonically make someone feel those things like they're watching one of those movies. But also with that being applied to the way that I feel about certain situations that I've been through.
Noah Thomas: Yeah. For me, everything, for some reason, relates back to this video game I play called Life Is Strange. So any emotion that I feel ever, I pull something from that game, and it's my number one resource for motivation and writing points. Life Is Strange is a storytelling game. And it's just the greatest thing I've ever played. I've played every single one of them 10 times over, but they're a super nostalgic piece of entertainment that I'm super attentive to that I pull all my feelings from there.
When it comes to music, was there any album in particular that had an impact?
Noah: The first one is Tate McCrae’s most recent album, SO CLOSE TO WHAT???.
Sace: Yes. SO CLOSE TO WHAT??? by Tate McCrae. I don't know how to read this, but I'm just going to show it on the screen right here. But this one's the most recent Vildhjarta record, +där skogen sjunger under evightens granar+.
Noah: Those two records, we pretty much just listened to nothing but those two. And we were just like, “This is the world, dude.” And that's how we coined thal and b. So yeah, it's really like if any two records could describe this record, it's those two.
What’s the writing process like for you both?
Noah: Either I'll write an instrumental and send it to him, or he'll write a hook or a verse or something that is the beginning point, but it is a song. He'll send it to me. I'll write out the instrumental [and] send it back to him. He'll put vocals on, come back to me and then [it] gets mixed. Very easy, just boom, boom, boom.
Sace: Just crank them out.
Do you ever have disagreements on songs, or are you guys always generally on the same page?
Sace: Yeah, but I feel like our taste is like, yes, it's so different, but it's also so similar into a way where it's like, I feel like we both have things that if we didn't like it in the moment, it grows on each other.
Noah: Yeah. There's no disagreements once the song is in form. The disagreements will happen if this should be a song, if this is worthy of being a song or not. We write with intention. There's no songs that we have that we're like, “Ah, we don't know if we're going to use it.” It's like we're either using it in the first 16 bars or it's just not happening.
Sace: Yeah. Every song that we finish comes out. We don't make 40 songs for an album and then tie it down to 11. We make the 11 songs and then that's what's presented.
Noah: We move very, very intentionally. There's no throwaways. There's no, “Oh, hold this for deluxe.” It's like, if we're doing this, we're doing this. If it's not good enough, it's not coming out. We only need to do what we believe is the best that we've done.
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Do you guys find that you can write quite easily, or do you have to be in the moment and it takes some time to actually get songs together?
Sace: No, I feel like it depends on what ideas are presented. Whenever I send him a 16 bar of something that I've just put minimal vocals over, he'll send it back the same night or if not, the next day. And songs get done pretty quick. It's like we just allow ourselves to fall into that world.
Also, for me personally, I don't write with intention of what the song is going to be about, and that partially explains the titles of all of the tracks pretty much, unless I said it in the song. But I feel like I write with the intention of [letting] myself come out of my body and just disassociate, let the song finish itself, not worry what it's about, not worry if I'm telling a story or anything, just let my full emotions come out. This way, I can just become a fan of what we do as well. And I feel like Noah feels the same way.
Noah: Yeah. Honestly, writing production-wise is just everything, at least for me. When it comes to production, everything is so fast-paced. And I don't think about what I'm doing. I just do it. It's real, primal instinct. Just if it sounds good, go with it. If I do a good job at emulating my emotions to a physical sonic level, then I have done my job as a producer and created what I needed to create. I'm not good with words, but I can translate that into sonics.
We don't want fillers. We want things that are just going to be timeless. Honestly, [the] biggest inspo for an album is Loathe’s I Let It in and it Took Everything. That has no sleepers, nothing is bad about that album. That is a timeless piece of music that will forever exist in realms of time and space forever. Nothing about that album is wrong or out of place. That is just going to be that... It just is timeless.
What are some fun facts behind the scenes of making the album that people don't know about?
Sace: ‘dolorous’ was made in a day.
Noah: ‘fabulous’ was made in 12 hours. From production to vocals being done, it was done in 12 hours.
Sace: ‘uneven’ took the longest. ‘uneven’ had multiple different versions, and we just didn't know which direction we wanted to take it, and then we finally found it. It was really special.
Noah: ‘covet’ was done pretty fast, it was super quick.
Noah: ‘nepenthe’ was done in 24 hours.
Sace: ‘nepenthe’ was done in 24 hours, start to finish, and mix everything.
Noah: Okay, so with ‘nepenthe’, we had the album. It was fun. We were about to submit it, and then I was just cooking up randomly. I was like, let me just fuck around and just make something. And I started this idea and I ran over to Sace. I was like, “Yo, this is insane.” And then I just finished it when I went back in my room, brought it back over. I was like, “Yo, I don't care what has to happen. This is going on the album.” And then he cut vocals that morning after, and in under 24 hours, that song got mixed and uploaded.
Sace: And sent. Yeah.
Noah: That was after the album. And me personally, that's my heavy hitter on the album. I think that one is unreal.
brutalist by sace6 is out Friday 8 May via Sumerian Records. Pre-order here. Catch sace6 supporting nothing,nowhere at Lion Arts Factory on Wednesday 22 April. Tickets on sale via moshtix.com.au.
