Just Like You Wanted It

CS: I got a local friend, this guy Doug who plays saxophone at a local church—he’s a really nice guy—so I got him to record some horns on there, and then I got Ryan Bateman to play slide guitar. The strings you’re hearing—I bought a mellotron, which is what you hear on “Strawberry Fields Forever”, that kind of organ intro thing. It samples string instruments and has this vintage wobbly sound to it. So there’s plenty of layers on that song. That song was one I had for a long time—probably like six years.

PH: I think that, again, that’s one of the things that makes the album very compelling. There are a lot of different looks.

CS: Yeah, and that’s because not only recording at different studios, but also [whether I] took the lead on writing or if it was more collaborative.

PH: So, I’ve heard your music categorized as indie rock, soul, psychedelic, lo-fi, some might say it’s got a dash of folk rock to it, or even “dad rock.” How would you categorize yourself?

CS: Dad rock, yeah… mmm, well, it’s always changing. But yeah, right now, I’m feeling the soulful vibe. It’s soulful, it’s bluesy, but it’s original sounding—it’s modern, but it sounds like it could have been out of the 50s, so those are things that I really like. I just like it to sound a little gritty and dirty, so I like the word psychedelic, just because it makes you think, okay, this is going to go somewhere weird, and I like that freedom to be able to go wherever you want.

PH: Psychedelic, as a genre, has always seemed kind of slippery to me.

CS: Yeah, it’s a loose term, but it doesn’t have to be all the way through. I like elements of psychedelic, but not to go there fully because you chase people off if it’s too abstract, right?

PH: For sure. Besides Dan Auerbach— are there any other big influences in general or for this particular album?

CS: I like Kevin Parker from Tame Impala—he’s a singer-songwriter extraordinaire—and then Kurt Vile is great. Who am I into now? Trying to think… oh, lately I’ve been listening to MJ Lenderman. He’s really good—kind of a newer guy. Grungy, southern alt stuff.

I think it’s song by a song, just kind of getting a vibe and not necessarily wanting to match that energy, but like, there’s a feeling. You’re like, oh, I like what they’re doing and that and that seems modern and what people are interested in, so you’re just trying to ride a wave of what seems current. Sometimes it’s a deep dive listening to Marvin Gaye or something—that can help too.

PH: Shifting gears a little bit, you’ve been active in the Fairbanks music scene now for going on two decades. Casey Smith Project has been around for quite a few years now, but before that you were in a band called Thought Trade. How have things changed and evolved in the Fairbanks music scene from your perspective?

CS: Back in the day, there were people here that were holding the scene together and now I don’t see that as much—maybe it’s me who needs to step up. Currently, I feel like there are a lot of solo artists. I meet a lot of people at open mics, like at the Cabin, and there’s people like Jonny J—Jonny Hutchinson—and there’s Ted and Jake Chavez, and so, you know, bands come and go, but there’s definitely a lot of great musicians that are still performing. Jack Bennett too.
Maybe ten, fifteen years ago, I felt like there were a lot more bands from high school and then in college that were around and a variety of genres from metal to indie to math rock to whatever. Thought Trade was kind of at the end of an era where Caleb Kuntz [now a Texas-based filmmaker] was running a lot of the open mics and hosting stuff. He actually helped me shoot my music video recently and we were just reminiscing about that. It seems so long ago and a lot of people have moved to Anchorage like Rebecca Menzia [formerly of Feeding Frenzy and Harm] and people that were very involved in the music scene and it doesn’t have that same vibe anymore, but I think there’s still plenty of music here. It’s just more insular or whatever, right? You gotta get the kids involved, I think.

PH: Oh, for sure. To me, for a community as relatively small as Fairbanks, it was kind of a special moment musically just because there were so many people doing a lot of cool things. Not that there aren’t now, but it doesn’t feel like it’s as cohesive as it was. As a scene survivor, what do you attribute that longevity to and do you have any tips for younger folks? You said go start a band, but any other thoughts?

CS: Well, you gotta love music. I joined a band because I love music and was in Thought Trade to hang out with my friends. And then we were together for seven years, which was a long time, and then I remember I had a handful of songs that they didn’t really like, so at the end of the band I just took those songs and decided, I’m gonna do a solo album. That springboarded me into the next chapter. My producer friend Trinity Stack helped me put that together, so then I had a solo album, and then I got a gig—I was gonna play on Alaska Live on TV, so I put a band together—I got Diamond Fuller and Jesse Bartlett—and that was the beginnings of the Casey Smith Project. Then it just kind of evolved.

I enjoy the band process, but it’s a lot harder to push forward because you’re bringing everybody with you and they may not have the same vision. Once I went solo, it’s just been so much easier to go forward and produce a lot more material. I mean with Thought Trade, we were mostly a recording band—we weren’t really a live band—so we had a lot of albums that we put out, but…

PH: Really? It seemed like Thought Trade was always on the marquee at the Marlin, almost like you guys were the house band…

CS: (laughs) Oh yeah, that was definitely our main venue. To answer your question about survivors though, I think that you just diversify is the big thing, so you play guitar and you sing, okay, well, can you play other instruments? Can you record yourself? Make your own flyers? Can you book your own shows? And then I just viewed all that as, wow, it’s endless where I can go with this—I can do as much as I want. And that’s been keeping me interested in it. I just keep going forward and learning new things and making my own music videos or whatever it is I want to do. My own storyboards. Teaming up with people. Hopefully be a producer one day or whatever it is—I’ve got people coming up and I’m going to record soon and just do all that.

I look at it that way—you can’t really make an album by yourself, but you can make a really good demo. If you have a good enough demo, you could send that to somebody that has more talent than you, that could be like, ‘oh, this is a really good start.’ Just do what you know how to do and then go from there, you know? Don’t let your limitations stop you from pushing forward.

PH: So I read somewhere that you grew up in Delta Junction. I’m always curious how anyone in a rural community, like Delta or other small communities in Alaska, find the music that they love. What brought you to music when you were growing up and what were you listening to back then?

CS: Well, my musical taste started with bands like Nirvana and Oasis and I remember my brothers were into Aerosmith and Guns ‘n’ Roses. My musical taste… that’s when it started popping off and I started finding my own style. That’s when I remember really loving music. It was In Utero from Nirvana that I was like, ‘this is great.’ And then I got into Radiohead and just went down that pipeline. Both my parents were singers, gospel kind of style—Christian music—and so I’ve been around singing my entire life.
I had a guitar when I was 14, but didn’t play it much. Then I went to school into Galena for a little while and started playing there. I just picked up the guitar and was like, man, I want to write a song and I’ve just been writing songs ever since.

PH: That must have been a good place to incubate your craft in Galena.

CS: Yeah! I remember I had a friend from a rural village and he played a guitar and he would come over to my room and we would just strum. He was really big into Marilyn Manson and all these random bands and he loved learning covers, but I just like finding out my own chords and making my own songs. I feel like you’re that kind of person who likes to write or you aren’t and I just always liked writing. I’m learning cover songs constantly, but it’s kind of a labor. It’s like work, whereas writing my own songs, it just feels natural.

PH: Bringing it back to Fairbanks, what’s one thing you wish people knew or understood about Fairbanks? What keeps you here?

CS: I like music on the porch in Esther on Sundays—that’s a really cool vibe… The Golden Eagle and the Malamute are both really cool venues and they feel like what Fairbanks was to me 15 years ago, where you just think, ‘wow, we have a lot of musicians in this town.’ I also think our solstice is a really musical time of the year for Fairbanks—even compared to Anchorage, I think that our solstice is the best.

PH: Solstice in Fairbanks is tough to beat! Thanks for taking the time and I look forward to the record release show!