Interview: Matt Priest and Elizabeth Lindau, co-founders of exquisite Chicago indie pop collective Canasta

The violin and piano have practically replaced the guitar for many of the brightest bands in the indie rock scene. And while Chicago six piece Canasta uses those same instruments to craft orchestral indie rock in the same arena as The New Pornographers, Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire, the group delivers a sound that’s distinctly its own, a sound that’s beautiful and pained, joyous and sad, sprawling and intimate. True the songs on its new album “The Fakeout, the Tease and the Breather” hover around five minutes each, and they require repeat listens to truly appreciate their majesty. But it’s an album that supports that old saying that patience is a virtue, not to mention one of the strongest Chicago album releases of the year.

In advance of the record’s release shows at Schubas on Saturday, the band’s co-founders Matt Priest (lead singer) and Elizabeth Lindau (violinst) talked to Chicago Beat about the making of the album, trying to maintain the band dynamic despite an often revolving line-up and how they’re trying to stand out in an industry already crowded by orchestral indie rock.

Chicago Beat: So how did this album come about, and what were your goals with the new record?

Matt Priest: Some of the songs were pretty old, they were written pretty soon after the last record. One thing we knew, and we were pretty proud of with the last record, was that it sounded like a collection of singles. A lot of the songs worked outside the context of the album. But it didn’t feel like it hanged together. You could have started the album at any track. We were pretty intent on making an album where we paid a little more attention to subtlety and attention to the listener to figure out these treasures that we knew wanted to do. And as we proceeded there were a number of changes, and we got new members in the band who presented new material, I was worried if that a consistent sound and some consistent themes were in jeopardy. We worked pretty hard to maintain a thorough line. I was kind of surprised. I was not sure if it was going to work but I think it did. It sounds like an album. I’m glad it hangs together.

Elizabeth Lindau: And we wanted to take it a step up in terms of sound quality, especially with our drum work, so we spent a bit more time in the studio.

MP: I think generally we wanted a record where we took our favorite songs from the last record and the ones that worked best live as the focus for the launch point of this record. We liked ones with melancholy lyrics and melody and maybe some atmosphere and oft-kilter rhythms, stuff you think of when you think of an indie pop band. So we started from there, and before we were done we had stuff in there that was a little shoegazey, a little bit of blue eyed soul, some contemporary classic.

EL: We even got in there everything from R&B to chamber pop and obviously indie rock. I wasn’t sure if we accomplished our goal but the whole thing sounds cohesive when you’re listening to it.

MP: We cover a lot of ground stylistically but it makes sense, and I think we accomplished what we set out to accomplish. With our last record out the gate our first track was catchy, off the bat you were moving and dancing. On this album, it takes a minute and a half before you hear any drums. It says, “Hey, I hope you set aside a few minutes to sit down.”

CB: What was the songwriting process like?

MP: We write songs pretty democratically, and we tend to write with all six people, not at all the lyrics but as far as the music goes. So on one hand it’s a lengthy process. Something isn’t done until we’re all excited about it and happy about it. It’s good to have checks and balances and everyone is pretty careful about making sure everybody keeps their eye on the prize and on what’s important, and it’s the song and the listener as opposed to self-indulgence. We also like to make use of all the instruments and put different voices in the spotlight. There are detours and intros and outros, so they end up being long. But they’re not too sprawling or too long. We wanted to make a pop record.

EL: Everything in our songs serves a purpose. It’s not an accident. Hopefully the longer songs still appeal to people and are engaging sonically. We’re hoping over those five or six minutes it takes you on a journey. There’s a lot of different stuff in those six minutes. It’s not just three or four chords over and over.

CB: And what was the songwriting process like given that you had so many new members in the band? Could you pick up where you left off or did you have to rebuild the dynamic?

EL: I think the process is actually pretty similar just with different people filling in those roles. We pretty much stuck to the process of everyone’s involved, everyone’s working together. Rarely does someone come in with a whole song written or a structure written. Usually it’s a couple of chords or a riff or something.

MP: The first few years we had the same line-up and we sort of each had roles when we had rehearsal how things would kind of go. So when you get three or four people all at once and you all toss their cards up in the air obviously whatever lands its going to be a different sound, a different approach to songwriting and so forth. But for us once every nine months somebody would take off and we’d replace that person, so in that case when you come into a band and there’s five members for a while and it’s full steam ahead and we’re playing shows and tour dates and putting up posters we’re songwriting and recording, you don’t have a whole lot of time to carve out your niche. You just sort of end up jumping on board and jumping into the shoes of the person who just left. And then you’re sort of in that role for a while, and that’s probably part of the reason some of the folks ended up not sticking around. In the end it was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m just filling more of a specific role instead of being allowed to be my own songwriter.’ But what I think is nice is a few months before we recorded this most recent record we had a solid line-up with some really great musicians, and it turned out to not be the case after the record, but leading up to the record we had a tight group. And three people had bands where they were the primary songwriters, so we had a ton of ideas coming in at once. So I think that was maybe the only time in the past few years where the people who had joined the band were not just going into old roles but were starting to carve out a niche for themselves. In some cases there were too many cooks in the kitchen, but most of the time it was really cool and really exciting. And there were a lot of strong personalities which can be rough sometimes, at the same time there were a ton of sparks and a lot of creative energy and it was kind of cool and a little different than Canasta has been in the past. I would say if you were to capture us in time six months before the record was recorded, we were probably working similarly to the way Canasta has always written. But for the last few months leading up to the recording of the record, I’d say we were a little different. We were working outside of our comfort zone, and it’s probably because of that that there are things on the album that sound like something we’ve never tried before. And I’m looking forward to doing more of that. Most of those people left, but here’s hoping that the new line-up can sort of do that, because I was liking the idea of really stretching ourselves.

CB: What about the lyric writing process. Where did these lyrics come from and what kinds of stories were you hoping to tell?

MP: I write them all. Like the last record, this record is personal, based on true experiences, things that happened to me or things that happened to people that are close to me. In a couple of cases I tried to write a fictional narrative, which was pretty freeing. That was pretty cool, I might do more of that in the future. … As far as themes go definitely a lot is about the factors that shape you and becoming who you are today and what you’re going to do to make sure you end up with no regrets.

A fair number of the songs have uplifting melodies, but when you step back and look at the lyrics they’re pretty melancholy. With the instruments, we have it seems more fun and find it more rewarding when we write stuff with minor chords and strange chords so it ends up sounding poppy. We’re not setting out to make happy sounds, but they’re humable. With thee lyrics, one of the things is when I sit down and start writing a song it takes me a long time, and when you’re spending that much time in your brain and thinking that deeply, I can’t help but end up with stuff that’s more introspective and thoughtful.

CB: You guys make music in an exceptionally crowded sub genre of music, indie rock accented by violin and piano. How do you seek to stand out?

MP: When we started about eight years ago, I’m not going to say nobody was making orchestral pop music. In the 70s, most pop music was orchestral and had a large band of folks. And while it’s pretty common in indie rock today, eight years ago it was not as common.

As far as setting ourselves apart, in order to stand out from the promotional side we step back and say, ‘What do we do differently from these other bands,’ and we make sure people are aware of those things that we do differently. Our songs have a different more intricate structure, they’re longer, and we tend to find ourselves sincere about the music but also about the relationship to the audience and the lyrical content. And there’s not much irony in what we do, and in the current indie rock scene there’s a fair amount of irony and an attempt to be edgy.

EL: It’s funny, we’re doing all the wrong things. We’re putting out a long album that requires people to sit down at a time where people are buying Mp3s on iTunes and listening to shorter poppy stuff. But we hope people care that we pay attention to details and that the songs’ melodies grab people.

Canasta plays a pair of record release shows at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport Ave., this Saturday. Tickets are $14 and include a copy of its new album. Times and ticket information are available here.

The band also plays a free show at Reckless Records, 3126 N. Broadway, at 5 p.m. on May 16.

The album, called “The Fakeout, the Tease and the Breather,” comes out on May 18. Details here.