Lolla Sessions: Wild Sweet Orange
Wild Sweet Orange talks recording, Grey's Anatomy and Alabama heat.
An overwhelming sense of honesty will reign over you when you listen to Wild Sweet Orange. The Birmingham bred band boasts a young career with an already successful album in terms of critical success. We Have Cause To Be Uneasy features backwoods charm with a sense of indie pop sensibility. HEAVE caught up with them at Lollapalooza.
HEAVE: Were you happy with your set?
Preston Lovinggood: I was very happy with the set. It doesn’t matter if there is two people or two thousand people; if I feel like there is a connection with the audience then I’m really happy with it. I felt there was a huge connection so I was thrilled about the set.
Chip Kilpatrick: Me too.
HEAVE: Can you help us connect the dots on how Emmylou Harris and David Lynch are some of your influences?
Preston Lovinggood: Emmylou Harris was born in Birmingham and is a country singer singing about the apocalypse and addiction. She is putting some beautiful melodies on a big crisis, and that is kind of what we are doing. David Lynch is talking about mystery in the suburbs. He is talking about sex and horror and holiness in it’s most ordinary. The second I saw Blue Velvet with fake robins and these houses with this Americana thing all under a curtain of evil – I was just really sucked in. I thought it was beautiful.
HEAVE: “Ten Dead Dogs” has this simple country feel to it, but the rest of the album is lushed out and full. Do you guys try to write a diverse album, or are all the songs independent of each other?
Preston Lovinggood: All the songs are independent of each other. We weren’t trying to write a diverse album, we were just trying to write really good songs. Different stuff came out. Chip might have a better answer for that.
Chip Kilpatrick: The record took four years to make. The songs we wrote were so spaced out and we all take influences from a bunch of different things. Everyone in the band does. When we come together as a four piece we put into the song whatever we were hearing, thinking and feeling. Each song gets our undivided attention. It’s going to come out completely different and I hope it’s always like that. I don’t want to be stuck in some kind of sound.
HEAVE: Was it weird hearing yourself on Grey’s Anatomy?
Preston Lovinggood: It was just thrilling. You grow up wanting to be an artist and wanting to be famous and wanting to be a part of pop culture. It was just a nice first step into pop culture. It was a nice feeling to know we were echoing through people’s living rooms. It was nice.
HEAVE: What was the episode about?
Preston Lovinggood: The episode was about sex. I actually have no clue. Aren’t they all about sex?
HEAVE: Yeah. I would never want to be at that hospital. They are talking about who is sleeping with who and I would probably die on the operating room table.
Preston Lovinggood: It was about sex for sure.
HEAVE: How did producer Mike McCarthy affect your sound?
Chip Kilpatrick: He really stripped us down. We had been touring with these songs and we kept adding things and adding things and by the end of the tour it was sort of a jumbled mess. We brought us back to where we originally recorded it and made it simpler.
HEAVE: Your lyrics are pretty intimate. Is it difficult to be that open to the public?
Preston Lovinggood: Yes. It is very difficult to be that open tot the public, but it’s also difficult to just be a human in general. It’s difficult to be honest with the people you are closest to. You are always running a risk by being yourself in a situation. These are risky times. That’s why being connected to the audience is so important. It’s like you are painting a picture and putting yourself into it, and if you aren’t into it then people’s backs will be turned. You are vulnerable and it hurts if you are putting yourself into something and nobody cares. But it is something you to get over, but that is really hard.
HEAVE: How did you guys deal with the heat today? It’s awful outside.
Preston Lovinggood: Well we grew up in Alabama so, honestly, it wasn’t that hot to us. And luckily we were at the BMI Stage where it was shaded and the water was behind us. It was awesome.
HEAVE: What band were you most excited to see?
Chip Kilpatrick: I wanted to see Rage, but I didn’t get to see them. I did get to see Broken Social Scene, and I wasn’t expecting to see them – and they were fantastic. That was really the only full set I’ve been able to watch.
Preston Lovinggood: I’m really excited to see Nine Inch Nails and Gnarls Barkley. I hope I don’t miss them. (Editors Note – He didn’t miss them).
Posted by Wes Soltis on Aug 11, 2008 @ 7:00 am