My interview with Macie Stewart of the band Finom. Finom released their latest album, ‘Not God’, in May via Joyful Noise Recordings. We have convened today to chat.

Diya: Good afternoon, Macie. It’s lovely to see you.

Macie: Hi. It’s so nice to see you too. Thank you for your patience. We’re a little late today, but it’s all coming together.

Diya: Yeah. How are you doing on this fine June afternoon?

Macie: I’m doing beautifully. We played a really great show in New York last night and now just kind of exploring New York. I haven’t been here in like two years, so it’s just nice to be back and walking around. I went on an art walk today and that was really nice, and met up with some friends, so it’s been good.

Diya: That’s awesome. Yeah, I’ve been following Finom’s work since I stumbled across your NPR Tiny Desk concert a few years ago. Let’s start from the beginning. I did some digging and learned that Finom’s origin story stems from both of you going to the same high school and then eventually noticing each other’s talent and joining forces in the summer of 2014 over a common love of experimental music and songwriting. Can you tell me a little bit more about your musical background and how it informs Finom’s artistic philosophy to this point?

Macie: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Sima and I met in high school and we both had been playing music for a really long time, and I’ve played piano and violin from a really young age, doing classical music stuff. We both played some Irish music growing up, and we both listened to a lot of different things. My mom’s also a piano bar musician, so I heard a lot of music through that and got kind of familiar with just, like, what it was like to gig every night, you know, and kind of what it was like to be a working musician. And my dad is a huge fan of a lot of types of music that really, like, heavily influenced me and the things that I do. So I think when Sima and I finally met up…She saw me in the school musical, which is so funny and cute, and she heard me sing and her brother was starting a band at the time. And she kind of connected us a little bit and then we started playing together. And when Sima came back from college to Chicago, she helped open this really amazing venue in Chicago called Constellation that is a really, really important place right now for improvised music and experimental music. And so that was happening and I was going there to go to shows and hang out with Sima. And both of us, I think, got exposed to this amazing universe of sounds and different ways that you could play instruments and different ways that you can play specifically the electric guitar. And so I think at that moment, we had been singing together in other people’s projects and singing together in our own projects. And I think at that moment we were like, let’s combine forces. We like each other’s songs, we love singing together, and we both are really interested in approaching it from this direction of experimenting with the sonic texture of the guitar and what it can do and trying to play an instrument that we don’t have any formal training in. Like, we’re both self taught in guitar. So that was exciting to us, to kind of get us out of the box.

Diya: Yeah, definitely. A lot of this album features upbeat rhythms with lots of energetic percussion sprinkled in, folky melodies and a very quintessentially Finom-style helping of guitar noise. I love the vocal harmonies on this album as well as the melodic and adventurous nature of the music. Can you tell me about your creative process on Not God, along with its sonic and emotional landscapes and how they show up through some of your songwriting, vocal and instrumental choices?

Macie: Yeah. We went into this record wanting to capture a little bit more of–I think we’re always trying to capture how we sound live because I think our live show is very dynamic and we’re always playing off of each other and sometimes things are happening in the moment that we aren’t planning and that’s some of the magic of the thing. So we really wanted to capture that and we brought it to Jeff Petey to produce the record and we recorded it at the loft as well. And we wanted to do that because he’s been a really big champion of our music for a while. And we’re also both big fans of his and his songwriting and the way that he melds experimental music with classic songwriting. And that’s something that we’ve always wanted to do…Keep songs at the core of what we’re doing, but kind of [explore] how far you can go with it. So I think a lot of the textures of the record are definitely because we brought it to the loft and we’re able to get some really amazing drum sounds. They have incredible drum sounds there. Tom Schick is the engineer in-house, and he is amazing and gets some really great  textures in there. I think a lot of our thesis statement for the sounds of the record were like, okay, we have these songs, and we want the songs to be at the center, we want them to be at the forefront. We want our songs to groove, and we also want each texture on the record to be really special and capture us as a unit playing together. So I think those were kind of our central tenets for creating this current record.

Diya: Yeah. So both of you have been involved in different areas of Chicago’s music scene, whether it be through classical training, backing vocals, or collaborations with other artists. You’ve got some excellent past projects as a band with albums Parts and Fantasize Your Ghost–both of which I love. How would you say the music on Not God is influenced by your past work?

Macie: Oh, I think It’s hard to say concretely because I think it all just builds off of each other. You’re constantly trying to find the thing. I think making a record and making music with someone else is kind of like the process of chiseling away a little sculpture. You start with this giant block of marble. You know, you can have infinite ideas for a thing, and I think that you’re always trying to find what shape fits you best at what time. And so I think those things are all a part of us, and they’re still a part of this record that we just made. But I also think that we have grown a lot as songwriters in the last few years and really have a deep affinity for the art of writing a good song. And so I think that that was definitely–not that we didn’t do that on past records, because I think that we did, but I think for this record, we knew that that was…We wanted that to be at the heart of what we were creating more so than, like, coming at it from a sick riff, which we also still like to do. But, yeah, I think there are definitely influences from our past, you know, there always will be, but I think it just is going to constantly morph and change because that is what interests us the most and is the most exciting to us like, what’s something that we can do a little bit differently this time around because we’re ultimately still going to be us making things, so that’s never going to change if we’re making music together. And I think that Finom is like the character of the two of us together, which is always going to be shifting and changing because as we’re growing as human beings that’s just an inevitable part of life.

Diya: Yeah. The vocals on this album are all-encompassing, whether it be through expressive harmonies, impassioned belting on tracks like “Cardinal”, or gorgeous low end on tracks like “As You Are”. As a listener, I notice a dose of absurdism in your lyrics. I feel like that delightfully complements the unpredictable melodies you employ. This album, much like some of your past work, is full of life energy and surreal soundscapes. To me, that’s reminiscent of the B-52s or even Talking Heads. I’d like to know what were some of the main inspirations for this project. And this could be other media such as music, literature, film, spiritual occurrences, religious epiphanies, et cetera.

Macie: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I think that this record, as we put all the songs together and saw them all in one place, we were like, oh, there’s this, like, theme that’s like an ego power struggle, you know, within ourselves and within the world in general, forces that we can or cannot control and wanting to control them and maybe not being able to do that. And I think there are some songs that deal with that on a very small personal level. Talking about the ego struggle that’s on a personal level with yourself and how much you want to control things around you, and sometimes you just can’t. Sometimes you can’t do that, you know? And going from that to then struggling with the powers that be and things that are happening in the world that you can contribute to. Or you can try to have some sort of semblance of control over it. But, like, It feels so overwhelming, you know? Like, I think that we were just realizing that we were thinking about this ego and power struggle throughout the lyrical themes of the record. I mean, I’m an avid journaler because I have a lot going on up here. I need to let it out so I think a lot of the lyrics for me definitely came from this process of, like, constant journaling. Maybe not directly from there, but it was, you know, getting that faucet running. Getting the faucet running of ideas kind of helped with the lyrical aspects of the record too, because then it just lended up being kind of a flow state. I’ve been reading a lot of poetry as well. Like, a lot of Kay Ryan poetry, which I think is really poignant and also sometimes absurdist at times. And Sima and I are huge fans of the B-52s and Talking Heads, like you said. But also the Roaches are a huge inspiration for us. And I think that a lot of their lyrics are really funny but also really touching. And something that Sima and I like to do is just, like, our songs are kind of reflecting the nature of life, which is that there is no one emotion. Things can be sad and so funny and so beautiful and so gut wrenching and so I think that life contains so many different things. And so I think our lyrics tend to reflect that because that’s something that we think about a lot.

Diya: You know, I’m interested in the album artwork. I’m curious about the cover art and the story behind it.

Macie Yeah, so we collaborated with this artist, Claire Shivar in Chicago, who did the album artwork for us. We’ve had our faces on the cover for the last two records and we kind of wanted to do the same thing here, but we didn’t want to be so up close. I think we wanted it to be something that felt a little farther away. And we were toying with the Idea of using photo booth photos. And we went to this great bar in Chicago called Rainbow that has a very legendary photo booth machine. It’s like one of the last ones in Chicago that actually uses real film photos. So we just spent a whole night there, like messing around and like adding different–there’s multiple sets of hands in the photos. It’s not just hands and I think that image…I don’t know that I have a direct reason why it pertains to the record, but it felt right to have like our faces and all these hands kind of distorting that. And on top of that we were pulling from a lot of the lyrics of the record to get some of the textures that are on the cover so there’s hair on the cover and it’s very visceral. And I think that really reflects some of the lyrics too. And yeah, I think that the album art–we’re really very excited about it. And there’s just one pop of red. (Diya: Yeah.) Which I think was kind of a recurring color that was happening throughout. Not that we mentioned the color red, but “Cardinal” or, like, the emotion of anger too I think is represented by red sometimes or red blood. Like, I think there’s something really visceral about that cover color…We knew we wanted it to be black and white with this red accent.

Diya: I’m also really interested in the music videos for this album. The video for “Not God” definitely plays off the surrealism we discussed earlier with the use of distorted TV screens and sci-fi-esque aesthetics. The boxing match video for “Cyclops” was super exciting and tongue-in-cheek. I had a great time watching that one. The video for “As You Are” is gorgeously shot and is a testament to friendship. And the video for “Haircut” takes a more absurdist approach to 60s hair and makeup. What stands out to me across videos is the theatrical sense of wonder and the handmade sci-fi direction and interpretive dance moves. Can you tell me a little bit more about the choices to include these visuals in your music videos and how they function in tandem with the album’s themes?

Macie: Yeah, I mean, Sima and I have a theater background if you probably cannot tell from all the stuff that we’re making. We definitely have a love for performance in general. These videos felt like a natural extension of the record and the creative body of work that surrounds the record. And we just have so many amazing, creative people in Chicago that we wanted to collaborate with. Like Glam Hag who directed the “Not God” video, Alex Grelle who directed the “Haircut” video, Marisa Dabice who directed “Cyclops”, and Jake Saner who directed “As You Are”. Not to mention the whole crew of people who worked on those videos, but those are some of our favorite creators that we know. So it was just really exciting to make something with them. And you know, the last couple of years, like in between Fantasize Your Ghost and Not God, Sima and I and Alex created a show called “Full Bush” which was a live stage performance, immersive piece dedicated to Kate Bush. We’ve also been working heavily with dancers and choreographers like Robin Mineka Williams. We made a piece a couple years ago also in between that time period with Hubbard Street Dance and another one with the Pacific Northwest Ballet and, like, a 50 piece orchestra. And we performed on stage with the ballet. So it’s something that we have been doing for the past five years and past our entire artistic careers too. And so it just felt like, why would we not include this very definite aspect of our creative collaboration in this record too. So I think making videos felt like a natural extension… A lot of our favorite musicians and just performance artists…I think Kate Bush obviously is a–I already mentioned her, but–huge inspiration and her videos are incredible, you know? Like her entire artistic output. David Bowie, you know, the B-52s too. Like there’s whole worlds of creativity from the things that they create. And I think that we wanted to have a more holistic approach with combining performance and dance and video and music and putting this all together to create a whole thing rather than having it be just a one-sided thing because that feels right sometimes. I think for this project we had a whole world that we wanted to create.

Diya: Yeah. Let’s talk gear. What would you say, was the most essential piece of gear to the particular sound of Not God?

Macie: Sima uses a bitcrusher pedal. I honestly forget what the bitcrusher was, but she uses that on a lot of things on the record. And it’s just such an amazing sound. It sounds like robot screaming and it’s really good. And our friend Michael Patrick Avery makes these really beautiful handmade petals and that’s what we’re using on the road now to kind of recreate that sound. So yeah, that’s one. I mean, my Electro-Harmonix bass pedal is another one…Could not live without that. And then we use this pedal called the platform, which kind of sounds like a reverse string or e-bow at times. So I think those three are really central elements to this record.

Diya: Yeah. Speaking of threes, if you were stranded on a desert island and could only take three pieces of gear with you, what would they be and why?

Macie: My violin, that’s, like, a hands down. I need it so I can make any sound I want with it and it feels like an extension of my body. Yeah. My violin, probably just an acoustic guitar. Honestly, it’s like all acoustic instruments. It would probably be violin, acoustic guitar–and does recording equipment count as a piece of gear?

Diya: Sure.

Macie: I guess it doesn’t matter because I’m on a desert island, so why would I need that? Piano, guitar and violin. I would need those three. I don’t need anything else beyond that. Can make a lot of freaky noises. Just those definitely.

Diya: Thank you so much for chatting with me (Macie: Yeah! Thank you!) and talking to me about Not God‘s process. It’s just been really interesting to hear about that as someone who’s been following your work for a while, yeah.

Macie: Yeah, thank you. And thank you so much for the beautiful interview.