WEIGHTY WORDS
Indie rock band Lydia shows more serious side on new album
Lydia’s more serious side came out on its latest album, “Run Wild.” It could be attributed to past experiences within the band or using two producers to work on the album. “In retrospect, I don’t know if it actually came out darker,” band member Matt Keller said of “Run Wild.” “It’s not as happy. I wouldn’t call ‘Run Wild’ a dark record, but it’s not nearly as happy as ‘Devil.’ I can’t really attribute it. Why? Seasons change. A lot of our influences is just what’s going on in our lives. Without delving into personal things, stuff happens in your life and you kind of maybe don’t want to write super happy music all the time.”
“Run Wild,” the follow-up to “Devil,” used two producers who had different approaches.
“It was really interesting,” said Keller, who plays keyboard, guitar, bass and handles programming for the band. “The two guys we did it with — Colby Wedgeworth and Aaron Marsh — they couldn’t be more different. It’s like humans and producers and people who listen to music. It’s hard to sum things up, but if I had to sum it up, I’d say that Colby is a pop guy. He’s really focusing on the melodies and the hooks and the catches and he kind of lets us do the vibe side. Whereas Marsh, the songs didn’t change a lot with Marsh. He really focused more on the vibe side of things. He didn’t really break down the lyrics and vocals quite as much. At the same time, I feel like the songs we brought Marsh, we recorded the songs with Marsh after Colby, so we had a little more time to flesh them out. It was really cool.” The experience helped Lydia grow. “We pushed ourselves a lot harder on this record just to make sure it worked out good,” Keller said. “When we recorded with Marsh, just the three of us camped out in his hotel room. It was long hours. There was a lot of stress going on, you know, and I can kind of hear that in the songs. I don’t know if other people do, but I can definitely hear there is a lot of push and pull going on.”
The band is working on new music. Lead vocalist and guitarist Leighton Antelman has gotten a jump start and writes in the back of the band’s van while on the road using a small keyboard that hooks up to his iPad, according to Keller.