Shady Groves

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Biography:

Shady Groves is a collective of Michigan-based singer-songwriters & multi-instrumentalists founded in 2015 by Adam Fitzgerald, Dylan Caron & Jeff Yateman, growing into a full band of musicians over the years that has included Jamie Dulin, Colt Caron, Sage Denam & Shane Fleisher. As of 2020, Shady Groves are back down to their singer-songwriter & multi-instrumentalist roots, only consisting of original founders Adam Fitzgerald & Dylan Caron, with additional players featured on separate tracks as needed.

Shady Groves released their debut album “Bitzer” on May 5th, 2016.
Shady Groves’ second album "Dreamboat" set sail worldwide on June 9th, 2021.

“Shady Groves manifested in 2015, the collaboration of songwriters Adam Fitzgerald, Dylan Caron and Jeff Yateman. Colt Caron (piano), Sage Denam (drums) and Jamie Dulin (bass) would eventually join, filling things out after Yateman left the band in late 2016. They found a slick, smooth electro-pop sound that was keen on rich tones, propulsive arrangements and a hushed kind of crooning vocal melody. I always felt like they found this serene musical field where they could fuse something melodramatic like The Smiths, contemplative like The Shins, post-chill-wave vibe-outs like Wild Nothing and an adventurous sense for reconstructing the possibilities of pop, like Tennis.

Fitzgerald is heading to Edinburgh to continue teaching and pursue another dream of becoming a published author. Dylan Caron, meanwhile, is going to launch a solo career under the moniker Quiet Wolf. Yateman, meanwhile, is better known as Hazeman, Jemmi Hazeman, that is, the musical leader of the Honey Riders. While he's overseas, Fitzgerald is going to continue releasing music with his own solo project, Quells, while the members of Shady Groves keep in creative partnership with their new label Underflow Records.”

– Jeff Milo of WDET, the Detroit Free Press, Detroit Metro Times, DeepCutz & Ideas Adrift

Adam Fitzgerald now releases music as Quells
Dylan Caron now releases music as Quiet Wolf
Jeff Yateman now releases music as Jemmi Hazeman
Jamie Dulin & Colt Caron now release music as The Honey Riders
Sage Denam now releases music as FinalBossFight!

What began as a project of songwriters banding together to help each other has blossomed into the foundations of an international label & artist collective.

Kind Words About Shady Groves:

“The group finds the sweet spot between The Shins and The Smiths.”
- Detroit Free Press

“The members of Shady Groves are steadily plying their trade as they negotiate what it means to be “a band” today. While their workaday demeanors may connect them to hometown heroes like MC5 or The Von Bondies, Shady Groves’ style is closer aligned with acts such as Menomena or The Dismemberment Plan — indie stalwarts who wear their love for unorthodox sounds and non-rock influences on their sleeves.
Bitzer, the act’s first album, covers a lot of sonic ground: introspective folk numbers, gimlet-eyed ambient reveries, and majestic multi-instrumental anthems. These coexisting styles — the result of three separate songwriters — are held together by the group’s shared sense for mood and melody. Now with some additions to their roster and the departure of an originating member, Shady Groves are ready to deliver a new vision that’s more cohesive but just as cutting-edge.”
- Detroit Music Mag

“Shady Groves are genre chameleons. Although their most recent album Bitzer bounces around from indie rock to shoegaze, dream pop to folk, they manage to stay consistently charming and confident in their sound.”
- Assemble Sound

More Kind Words on Shady Groves:

“Michigan based collective Shady Groves is brimming with talent and versatility. Their lofty, drifting sound sends listeners to tranquil mindsets as their ambient, indie, folk style meets somewhere in the middle with pop and rock genres. A group of multi- instrumentalists and songwriters, Shady Groves use their individual talents to inject variety into their collective songs, and their cohesion as a group is seamless even with so many cooks in the kitchen.
Coming together in 2015, Shady Groves has more recently released their 12 track album Bitzer which has been well received for its outstanding lyrics and musicianship. The album features eye-catching and textured visuals from Connor Irwin who has done all of the artwork for the group. Shady Groves’ music sounds like the lovechild of chill wave and psychedelic rock and is perfect for just kind of getting lost in the music and lyrics.”
- Playground Detroit

"Harmony-heavy, vocal-centric, ukulele-utilizing folk-pop, with tones as smooth as honey and cooing guitars (sounds like slide-guitar, almost) shearing in softly like the morning's first sunrays, but really, this is like anytime-o'-day music, kinda laid back and exquisite in its own way. It’s rare to find pure pop so interestingly re-shaped, re-molded and finessed into a charming new form of its own."
- Jeff Milo of DeepCutz / Detroit Metro Times / Oakland Press

“Shady Groves could fill a long standing void in the Detroit pop patchwork. ‘Plain Dream’ oozes the lush harmonies and textural atmospheric tendencies of Fleet Foxes and sometimes reflective of Band of Horses… thoughtfully arranged in a way that gives the aural illusion of travel.
Shady Groves seems like a resurgence of a genre that has inherently had very little presence here in Detroit… the ambient indie pop rock scene from seven-nine years ago fizzled out quietly and, well, I sort of miss it.”
- AudioFemme

More Kind Words About Shady Groves:

“There are times when it’s difficult to pinpoint a band to a genre or group of genres; Shady Groves is certainly one these bands. Their eclectic sounds cross 60s influences with light funk, dream pop flavors, tastes of folk, and indie pop sounds. This is a band interested in melding sounds together.”

- PuddleGum

"Dreamy mash of echoing vocals, modest drums, and haunting harmonies. The guitar is subtle yet powerful, creating a warm space within the song that wraps your mind in nostalgia. This sound is open and airy, with an emptiness that complements their earthy and reflective sound.
If you’re ready to fall into a trippy, dream sequence, then Shady Groves’ new release, Bitzer, will take you there. The vocals cut through fuzzy, psychedelic guitar and rhythmic drums. Each track is superb in its delivery, jumping from psychedelic rock to new wave jazz and beyond. The synth adds a nice neo-psychedelic touch and stacks another layer onto the already full sound they’ve created. The entire album feels like an adventure; road tripping through the creative process and uncovering pop/rock surprises along the way. This release is great for all occasions and we know you’ll enjoy listening to Bitzer straight through."
- CW Detroit

"Shady Groves’ collaborative approach makes for a rather interesting and alluring album, which has a lovely flow to it yet is distinct from track to track. It is actually possible to point out who might have written which song, because there are some more cinematic, some more dreamy indie pop and some more experimental tracks on the album."
- GlamGlare

“When we heard PLAIN DREAM for the first time, we had to close our eyes. Something like that does not happen often, at most at the first bite of cheesecake or the first sip of a cold beer in the beer garden in Bavaria. You know what we mean. SHADY GROVES is a collective of diverse singer / songwriters and musicians from the Michigan area. Founded by Adam Fitzgerald, Dylan Caron & Jeff Yateman. Plain Dream is the first single and impresses with this terrific soft melody, and these beautiful lines: ‘Lay your head, close your eyes, fall asleep, have a dream, bout the things, that you think that you'll be doin’ back at home, before you sleep all alone, everybody sleeps all alone ' “
- We Love That Sound

“Shady Groves, the collective of Michigan-based singer-songwriters (with member Adam Fitzgerald now calling Scotland home), are preparing the release of their sophomore album Dreamboat via Underflow Records. They’ve already shared two singles from the album with “Quiet Wolf” & “Backflips” and have just returned with the music video for the third single from the LP, “Pocket Knives.”
Sonically, “Pocket Knives” is one of the most expansive and far-reaching songs from the band to date. They stretch the widescreen sonic nature of the track to something big and bold, while simultaneously allowing it to ring true with the expected passionate lyricism that we’ve come to expect from the group.”
- We All Want Someone To Shout For

Unedited Interview with "Buzz Music" / Buzz Music LA

”Seep into Psychedelia with Shady Groves’ music video “Smoulder” - video & interview with BuzzMusic LA

1. BuzzMusic: We love the soothing and psychedelic tones of your latest single, "Smoulder." Would you say that most of your songs offer this psychedelic and wavy feel?
   Adam Fitzgerald: First of all, thank you. Honestly all of our songs are very different, we try to push ourselves into new sonic territory while also expanding on what makes us "us" and staying consistent. Our other brand new single "Like You" was once described to me as Beach Boys meets The Strokes, which feels pretty perfect, while "Smoulder" is a lot moodier. We love all sorts of music so I've always been into the idea of our albums sounding like mixtapes. Our heroes like the Velvet Underground or Grizzly Bear or blur / Gorillaz or Broken Social Scene always have such different songs & I love that. I think part of that sound on "Smoulder" comes from my guitar tone, which is something that has evolved over the years into a special kind of amorphous weirdness. We like to do different things because we like so many styles of music, we never want to do the same thing twice. Some of our songs are folk sounding, with mandolins or banjos or ukuleles or whatever, then we have songs like "Smoulder" or "Waves" that have that "wavy feel" (love that by the way, thank you) so we usually just say our music is "indie" when people ask, because it's a nice umbrella term - we've been called "genre chameleons" before & I dig that. I'm even able to sample my guitar now, or use my guitar pedals like an MPC/ sampler, which I do on this song & "Backflips" so there are some wholly unique sounds & blends happening in our songs, which goes along with us striving to push ourselves. When we record, we tend to layer shit endlessly, even "ghost layers" no one else would ever know are in the compositions, which I'm especially guilty of when I make my strange brand of guitar goop soup. As our friend / producer / engineer Jeff Yateman / Jemmi Hazeman said to me about mixing our music: "it's not just two fuckin' guitars, bass, drums, keys & vocals - there's a lot of shit in there, it takes time." (LOL) For this song, I wrote & recorded a demo for "Smoulder" with just a simple hip-hop beat & then I looped just that main bassline for the whole thing, so it had that kind of hip-hop / R&B rhythmic groove, but shoegazey & lo-fi with dreampop guitars half in reverse & half sampled, then later I was able to clean it all up & finalize the bass, plus our friend Shane Fleisher played actual drums on it. I'm very much into all types of music, from jazz or chillwave to dream pop and shoegaze & every era of R&B, so my songs end up coming out a little spacey, or perhaps our sound is naturally schizophrenic. Both Dylan & I are very eclectic in our tastes but also particular types of people, & I think that's why we bonded young in our random little hometown outside Flint, MI before we escaped it - we're two totally different dudes but we understand & respect each other. Part of that "feel" you mention I do think is us as a band, part of our "sound" I guess, which maybe at its core has always hinged upon the harmonies Dylan & I sing together. Funny, in our very first write-up for "Plain Dream" they called it soothing - even though that is more of an indie-folk-pop song, so maybe we're doing something right consistency-wise, despite genre or style. Maybe we're off-kilter pop. |||

   Dylan Caron: “I actually pay $2,500 a week to have 7 theremin players nearby to play sinister sounds to me as I splash my toes around in the bathtub. It’s like medicine for my soul and the only way I am able to come up with song ideas.”

2. BuzzMusic: Where did the lyrical inspiration for "Smoulder" come about? How did your group divide the songwriting?

   Adam Fitzgerald: It's always been 50/50 - Shady Groves truly is Dylan & I. It started with just the two of us, when Dylan brought me the song "Plain Dream" I was blown away, so I helped him finish it, and from then on we've just been helping each other finish songs. Sometimes I'll write an entire song like "Smoulder" and Dylan will add his angelic vocals and then the harmonies will be what makes it for me, or our friend Colt adding the Moog synth. Or Dyl will write a song like "Like You" & I try to do whatever I can to help. Or we write songs from scratch together, like "Pocket Knives" - so, we actually write songs separately & together, collaborating in person or via email, sometimes over oceans like when I was living in Edinburgh. Sometimes Dylan & I trade verses, then sing the choruses together, or we just back each other up. Usually we both play guitar & both sing on every song, plus whatever. As for the lyrics for "Smoulder" specifically, I think it taps into a similar mentality / pathos as the entire album - trying to make sense of the end of the world - how does romance or life, love, addictions, etc. function during these times? It's a love song for the apocalypse, about choosing the right things over the wrong shit even when everything's falling apart. |||

   Dylan Caron: “Although I didn’t write any lyrics for this particular song, I saw a hawk flying over the peak of O’ryans Crest at the time, which made me go into a deep deep state of meditation. I then got the most organic smoothie Tropi-kale Smoothies has to offer and used my telepathy to send brain activity to Adam”

3. BuzzMusic: Seeing as your group offers deftly-produced sonics, what was the creative process like for "Smoulder" when finding the right sounds to complement the song's lyricism?

   Adam Fitzgerald: Dylan said something the other day along the lines of, when we're writing songs we try to find words that feel like the music. I like that, because I think that seems right. Sometimes we slave away over songs, changing lyrics, chords, particular instrumental parts, etc. Then sometimes they come together fast, like this one kinda spilled out of me quickly. Obviously a lot of it is what you're feeling at the time, it comes out in one way or another, musically or lyrically, we just try to align the two - but I also think it comes from the vibe that became encapsulated within this entire second "Dreamboat" album - shakey notions about human ideals, like - what is happiness? What is the ideal partner? The ideal life? What is your "Dreamboat" to sail away from this hellish reality? Even though the world will smoulder, we're growing older, etc. maybe it doesn't matter. (Another idea that has become cohesive to the album - as a similar lyric is in the refrain of our other newer song "Backflips" also on this record - "it doesn't matter" = https://soundcloud.com/underflowrecords/backflips-by-shady-groves ). Thank you for your kind words, I would say our former member & current engineer Jeff Yateman is responsible for the deftness of our sonics because he has the golden ears as we say - we've recorded & produced this entire album "in the trenches" alongside Jeff / Jemmi Hazeman but he's the one really engineering it, mixing & mastering it (in those trenches), then we are releasing the album through our collective Underflow Records. |||

   Dylan Caron: “I heard an audio clip of Billie Eilish brushing her teeth and it hit me like a ton of organic bananas. I knew: ‘this is how my guitar tone needs to sound’ so it’s supposed to sound like Billie Eilish brushing her teeth...”

4. BuzzMusic: How do the released singles from your album 'Dreamboat' help listeners know what they should expect from the forthcoming project?

   Adam Fitzgerald: Good question. I hope the singles we've released so far show people that we're not a "one trick pony" so-to-speak. Again, Dylan & I write together & separately, so our songs are all over the place in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it's just him & I on the tracks, plus a drummer like Sage or Shane or Jeff, or sometimes our friends like Jamie (bass) or Colt (keys) might add some stuff, but for the most part we work well together because we aren't too precious about it - we take our music seriously but we don't take ourselves too seriously. There's too much ego in music, so we try to be as egoless as possible. We always try to do what's best for each individual song, we're not worried about who does what or how it happens or credit or notoriety or percentages or blah blah blah. Dylan & I try to go with the flow. Whenever we talk about music or art we just do it and try not to get our hopes up because we've been making music together in some form or another for a decade or so. It's like that quote "happiness is reality minus expectations" or whatever. |||
   Dylan Caron: “They can expect a laser production, created entirely from video clips of glow fish. Instead of sounds; we are making music for the eyes.”

5. BuzzMusic: What's next for you?

   Adam Fitzgerald: Our third album. Somehow Underflow has grown into this proper international collective & brand, so in a way, I'd like to believe that motivates us even more to keep releasing music, even if we feel like no one cares half the time or shows aren't happening anymore or whatever. When I was in the UK & Dylan in the US, we never stopped writing - together & separately. As Dylan said the other day, we have songs that have been in works for years now, and some of these are finally going to surface on our third record. I'm as excited to get "Dreamboat" out to the world as I am to properly record these songs for LP3, because I think they are some of the best we've ever written - together or separately! I'm also going to finally release some other songs & beats I've been working on alone over the years as Quells. Plus lots else through Underflow we're really excited about like a new collaborative Jemmi Hazeman & The Honey Riders album, and new music from Pesky Kid, Jeb Busch Lite, A.R. Laidlaw, Golden Spine & more. Hopefully one of these days I'll actually get the first book in my series published also... |||

   Dylan Caron: “I’m thinking of dropping all the music stuff and becoming either a nascar driver, astronaut, or a cowboy... just some old cowpoke no big deal sort of thing... people see me and think, "Wow, there’s a guy that’s got it all figured out. Also he’s wearing spurs, which I respect and admire. I wanna be his friend." And then I take a photo with them, just some "ok cowboy going about my day at the saloon” type stuff.

UNEDITED Interview with Jeff Milo for Current Magazine in Ann Arbor Michigan - for the “Dreamboat” album release April 2021

Link to the Actual Published Article: ”Shady Groves’ ‘Dreamboat’ Sails a Varied Voyage of Friendship, Empathy, and Existentialism”

1.    Jeff Milo: Adam/Dylan: Can you just catch me up on what it was like to continue collaborating with an ocean between you? And if at any point you found yourselves feeling challenged by the distance, what was it, motivationally-speaking, that particularly kept Underflow and Shady Groves’ development moving forward?

Adam Fitzgerald: Maybe it made things more difficult when I moved to the UK, but we’ve never had a straight-forward approach. The dynamic has changed a lot with many different collaborators, but it’s always been Dylan & I at the core. Some of these new songs (& most of our future songs for the third record) are just Dylan & I doing everything, then a drummer, like Jeff or Sage or Shane. For us I think it’s always been about the songs, although we really do miss shows a lot. It definitely put a stop to us being a “band” for a while, but as Dylan always says, we’ve never really been a band. Since the beginning, it was always Dylan & I showing each other songs, helping each other make sense of different ideas. When Jeff / Jemmi Hazeman joined for our first album “Bitzer” we had an endless amount of songs & ideas, then even after he left we had a full band with Colt Caron (keys), Jamie Dulin (bass) & Sage Denam (drums) so there was a lot of ups & downs during the entire conceptualization of the band & these first two albums. We’ve never stopped writing & as excited as we are about “Dreamboat” we might be even more thrilled about getting to work properly recording the songs for SGLP3. 
I think at the core Dylan & I just like helping each other finish songs & making them as good as they possibly can be. We motivate each other in a very supportive, non-competitive way. When we write separately, usually we each think what we’re working on individually is a piece of shit or decent at best, then when the other one of us hears it it’s like “no this is great!” & I definitely feel like that helps keep this project going without being too ego-driven. We’re writing songs, so sometimes we do it separate, sometimes together, sometimes in a room, sometimes over an ocean or across many miles through email. When I moved to the UK in 2018, that basically turned Shady Groves back into a duo of songwriter producers (as we jokingly call ourselves) so I think no matter where Dylan or I end up geographically we will probably always collaborate. 

Dylan Caron: For me personally, the biggest challenge was when we were separated everything was so new and foreign to me, I had to adapt quickly. It was so unexpected, because we’d never been more than an ocean apart… but I made a friend named Doris. She had a very poor memory, but she did indeed end up helping me fight my way through the ocean to save Adam.

2.    Jeff Milo: How and when did the songs for Dreamboat come together? Were they all written in the period of time after Adam moved back?

Adam Fitzgerald: Actually, these songs have been written over many years, some stretching back to before or during the recording of our first album even. Some of these songs like “Backflips” or “Quiet Wolf” or “Endless” were staples in our live sets for a while too, back when we were playing endless amounts of shows between 2015-2018. So those songs, along with “Pocket Knives” were very much conceived with the full band in a room, then (as always) Dylan & I go in & start recording things bit by bit. Some of those pieces make it into the final recordings; usually we just work on our demos until we’re happy with them, then take those to Jeff Yateman / Jemmi Hazeman to start re-recording & finalizing. It’s honestly been kind of a grueling process. We finalized the tracklist & started final recordings in 2018… but then I moved to the UK. Maybe I killed our momentum. We released “Backflips” & “Quiet Wolf” then it took an entire year to get “Pocket Knives” out. The band was kind of in limbo & most of our other members moved on with their lives, Sage with his band FinalBossFight! & then Jamie + Colt in Jemmi Hazeman & The Honey Riders – so then it was really up to Dylan & I to make sense of what to do. When I moved back to Michigan in late 2019, we reconvened to continue recording, mainly Dylan, Colt, Jeff & I. But then the pandemic hit, so the album was delayed further. We thought the album would for sure be out in 2020, but, no dice. Spring 2021 now. Perhaps the most insane / ludicrous / stupid album release process ever attempted. So, technically some songs have been finished, while others have been in development basically until now, down to the actual lyrics & layers as well as mixing & mastering.

Dylan Caron: It was tricky when Adam first returned, as I had already built up a relationship with all the other toys… I mean, people. And then they all wanted to hang out with him, because he was some hotshot, having just come back from space… I mean, the U.K. So, there was a time when we were both put in a position where we both got kicked out of a house together, and we had to go on this huge adventure together which basically ended up at the neighbor’s house, who was a total shithead. He was a very destructive person; he blew a lot of shit up. He even tried to light Adam on fire once. Long story short, we ended up making it through all this and it made us a lot closer.

3.  Jeff Milo:   Can you guys speak, albeit abstractly, of the vibe that you go for when you're moving from the songwriting process into the production process? So many of your songs are consistently epitomizing a restorative surge of serotonin--but not in a rave-up pop dance party sense, but in this just striding, grooving, meditative way... Your songs feel like deep cleansing breaths! Tell me about how THAT happens!

Adam Fitzgerald: Well wow, thank you – that means a lot, because I’d say our aim is to create an entirely unique experience for every song. We’re very much into all types of music, but we also have our own signatures styles, so I think weaving all that together with the energy of the music itself & the pathos of the lyrics has a lot to do with it. I try to write every song in a different way, maybe by starting on a different instrument each time, sometimes with a guitar part or a bassline or some weird sound collage I made using my pedals that I can sample or reverse, whereas Dylan usually always starts with an acoustic. I think we both value being able to strip every song we have down to just guitar & vocals to really test it before we “throw the kitchen sink in” on certain songs to produce them how we want sonically. 
I think that’s maybe one of the weirdest lines we walk, my spaciness & Dylan’s folkiness – one of us will come up with an idea, then another will add stuff, then I’ll record guitar, bass, samples & guitar goop soup (sound collages) & / or he’ll record banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, acoustics, etc. then we’ll both figure out the drums, keys, arrangements & other sounds together. Sometimes we’ll end up with like 5 part harmonies with 4 guitar parts & 3 synths & all these other layers going on in our recordings, but then we can also play the same song just the two of us. The production process is a lot of back & forth, adding, taking away, tweaking. The first few singles were more of a full band effort, then once I got back from the UK it was just Dylan & I, so I had to record a lot of bass, we had to re-record a bunch, then we had Shane Fleisher of The Honey Riders play drums on the remaining 7 of the 10 “Dreamboat” songs. It’s been a long haul, but I do think we try to cultivate a meditative vibe. It’s important to breathe.

Dylan Caron: Well usually I put myself in the mindset of, not a human, but a small robot who is trying to clean up of the planet from pollution. From there, I usually end up at a space station, looking at all the humans around me who are overweight and not breathing fresh air and are addicted to technology. I’m usually able to coax the humans away from their technology addiction, but it typically takes at least an hour and forty-three minutes. My only mission is to clean the planet. But love can get in the way… programming is confusing…

4.  Jeff Milo:    What you're able to do with the layers of guitar and vocals, whether it's delay, reverb, or some other kind of magic--I think that's where the DREAM-y dreaminess of DREAMBOAT comes in for me..., but I know that some people can absorb those aural effects and think that this fits into "psyche" rock. So, let's ask about what you guys think of when you think of "genre" in terms of SG. (And feel free to add in where that album name came from).

Adam Fitzgerald: Again, thank you so much. It’s funny, we’ve been called “genre chameleons” before & I think that fits pretty well, so that’s a really good question. We’ve been called just about every genre & subgenre in the book, especially because each song is typically pretty different than the next. Like you said, maybe there is a cohesive dreaminess to our music, whether it’s our arrangements, harmonies, guitar tones, whatever, we just really like different styles of music so we never want to repeat ourselves when there’s so much sonic territory to explore. I usually tell people we are “indie” because that’s a nice umbrella term, plus it’s true, we’ve always been entirely independent. Indie, folk, pop, rock, alternative, shoegaze, dreampop, psychedelic; all these words have been use to describe Shady Groves & I hope that’s a good thing. 
As for the album title, I think part of it is indeed reflective of our own sound (our very first single was called “Plain Dream” as kind of a pun on itself because Dylan sings about planes in the song & paradoxically dreams are never really ever plain) but mostly with “Dreamboat” we are exploring the inherent paradoxes of life & love. Like, what is a “Dreamboat” exactly? A person? A place? A feeling? It’s probably individual to each person. Everybody wants to escape this reality these days, so maybe it’s kind of examining that, re-evaluating what human ideals even mean – what’s the ideal partner, the ideal career, the ideal life – what is happiness? Maybe the central theme of the album revolves around duality, the light & the dark. I always tell people even though we take our music & songs seriously, we don’t take ourselves very seriously… we try to go with the flow. Life is a tragic comedy, so you have to take the good with the bad.

Dylan Caron: I came up with the album name when I was around ten years old. I had just gotten home from school, and my parents informed me that they were sending me off to a fat camp. I was skeptical at first, as I had never been to camp, and I wanted to just spend the summer hanging out. After a lot of arguing with my parents, I ended up going, and actually gained a little bit of enthusiasm when I met Keenan Thompson on the way there (who I’ve always been a big fan of). But things took a turn for the worst as soon as I arrived. I was so enticed by the idea of the go-karts, and summer fun. But come to find out, the summer camp had a new owner, who was basically just trying to make a weight-loss infomercial for kids. It was so messed up, but I made a lot of close and lasting friendships, including Adam. But mostly, that entire summer I kept dreaming about us taking a boat across the lake to the girls’ camp. (We did have a dance with the entire girls’ camp eventually, but I won’t even go into that.)

5.  Jeff Milo:    "Smoulder" talks about change and the potential for it yet addresses a feeling of going nowhere and how that doesn't matter... " while "Pocket Knives" has a confession of having not ever known, in the first place, where we were going... And "Backflips" is an acknowledgment of "...it doesn't matter." So I'm eager to dig into your mindset for the lyrics.... Is it acceptance? Letting go? It's not like it's nihilism, is it? :)  Tell me about the lyrics...

Adam Fitzgerald: Another really great question – you’ve tapped into a lot of the themes of the album there. It’s funny how honestly a lot of this stuff is subconscious until you examine it under a microscope, then it’s kind of like “wow this is actually really cohesive.” Especially the reoccurring “it doesn’t matter” theme, as in, don’t worry so much. The chorus of “Pocket Knives” is a great example of something that was 100% both Dylan & I. We were working out the riffs & the lyrics & the melodies all at once together. “What if we told you the truth, we never knew where we were going/ What if the world that we knew was just in our imagination?” might kind of be the thesis of the album. Definitely not nihilism, although Jeff did write a truly epic song called “Nothing Matters” that’s on our first album. A working title for the record was “acquiescence” for a while – which is a horrible album title, but it’s one of the themes – like you mentioned: acceptance, letting go, realizing not everything we are so deeply upset about or affected by actually matters. In “Backflips” it begins with the lines “It’s hard to accept everyone will die someday/ Nobody gets it right, but at least we try some way.” 
There’s a lot of empathy in this album, as Dylan & I try to write stuff people can relate to, experiences people share either together or have in solitude throughout life that become meaningful. There are love songs on this record –  another kind of goof off the idea of a “dreamboat” – but there are some darker songs too, about heartbreak, addictions, trauma, etc. Because that’s actual life. All of it. Even some of the love songs are questioning what love is & what relationships mean at the end of the world, or at least another “fall of Rome” situation, but still being open to love, learning, acceptance & forgiveness. Again, empathy. The first song is called “Afraid of Love” (which a clip of is featured in our “Pocket Knives” video) & it’s kind of built on a single mantra that could go a million different ways – I think the only lyrics are “… thought I was afraid of love… but I didn’t know anything.” Again, maybe that’s tied to this reoccurring theme of us kind of taking a deep breath to stride forward through heartbreak & forge ahead with new meanings of love & still allowing love & learning into our lives. Then the last song on the album is called “Endless” – which, we used to play live a lot. That song is complex & has multiple characters but it’s built on themes of love & addictions being reflections of each other, just like time & eternity are somewhat paradoxical by nature, hence the central lyric “Still the time passes on/ Time is always endless.”

Dylan Caron: I feel like a lot of the lyrics, or maybe mine in particular, come from childhood trauma. When I was younger I was put on a hockey team run by this selfish asshole who was basically just doing it because he had to for his community service hours. We started off as an awful team of misfits, but somehow ended up coming together. Our team even ended up beating another team from Iceland years later, who were supposedly way better than us. But at the time, it was really rough, and I honestly didn’t think I would stick with the team. I think those themes relate to our band a lot. 

6.  Jeff Milo:   You've got a lot of other great projects under Underflow, which we'll link to at the bottom of the article. But having managed a label for a handful of years now, what have you learned? What has become your working philosophy? Or, if you have any advice to anyone out there considering trying to start up their own label, what would you offer them? 

Adam Fitzgerald:  Thank you, I’m glad to hear people are finally starting to dig into these exciting new artists we’ve got working with Underflow. I was just listening to the new EP that Jeff just finished mastering for Pesky Kid & it sounds so good. I’m happy to help all these talented people link together for the betterment of all of us. Honestly Underflow was born out of necessity, wanting to help others & being jaded by the industry. The amount of music all of us had together, & separately, was piling up. I’d had offers & “deals” & many broken promises. I’ve put money down for studio time (twice) & the “labels” never came through with the vinyl records we were guaranteed. Eventually I figured, “Why rely on anyone else?” I’d always dreamt of starting a label, so I said, “fuck it.” 
When Underflow launched in 2018, we put out the first few singles for the second Shady Groves album & prepared for more, but then I moved to Edinburgh. It slowed us down a bit, but essentially we’re just helping artists release their own music worldwide in the most direct, honest & effective ways possible. The entire mentality is “DIY” so that’d be my advice – do it yourself. Our artists can walk away at any point because I want them to be in control of their art, we’re more of a collective than a label. My philosophy with all the artistic endeavors I’ve founded has always been “we are stronger together” – whether that was Whateverfest back when, Shady Groves or Underflow. The idea is that each project can be a springboard for multiple artists to launch a career & connect with individuals from around the world. Going international, partnering with Park The Van for licensing & everything else has been an added bonus from hard work & accumulated effort. I believe in the power of music, as art, to help people, to heal, whatever; it’s needed more now than ever. “Dreamboat” is our album of moody love songs for the apocalypse. 

Dylan Caron: Yeah, don’t ever trust your butler. Mine took me, my siblings and my mother, put us all in a sack, took us out to the middle of nowhere, and threw us off a bridge. Luckily, we recovered quickly and met a nice drifter named Thomas O’Malley, who knew the ways of the road. He was able to get us back home safely, and even ended up joining our family. Everybody wants to be a cat, and family can come in all shapes and sizes, kind of like Underflow and Shady Groves. Take all your interviews very seriously.