5 facts about the new Haniwa album
Haniwa began its newest album with a little nonsense.
Back in 2015, the Oklahoma City-based band tracked a twosong demo to feel out a newer, fuller sound. Guitarist and singer Shirley Sanders picked a weird name for the new recordings, “Ennui Volts.” It’s an anagram of the band’s 2017 effort “Violent Sun,” which was-self-released on Aug. 18.
Dylan Walling (keyboard and vocals), Shirley Sanders (guitar and vocals), Shawn Stafford (guitar), Jake Jones (drums) and Tyco Holloway (bass) fill the band’s current lineup. The album highlight and live standout “Feels” was co-written by Sanders and Stafford.
“Shawn had this driving guitar part and some lyrics about wondering if you’re schizophrenic, and if not, how do we reconcile thoughts and reality?” Sanders told The Oklahoman. “He kept singing, ‘Feel it with me now, feel it with me now.’ I echoed that idea in the verse. It appears as though the ‘she’ in the song could be a lover, but really ‘she’ is another me, under the surface.
“We’ve all dealt with mental illness in some form, and it’s terribly isolating. Sometimes we desperately need someone to come to our level and ‘feel’ what we’re feeling.”
Recording “Violent Sun” was a time-consuming process for the band and there were a lot of false starts. An early version was scrapped almost entirely before Haniwa focused on refining its live show.
“We had five months of nonstop playing, saying yes to every show opportunity and playing three or four nights a week sometimes,” Sanders said. “Our shows got better, more powerful and dynamic. It was exhausting, but when we went back to record again, we were obviously a lot tighter and more comfortable as a five-piece. It was a huge relief.”
The band collaborated with recording engineer Caleb Gray and worked on the album at ACM@UCO in downtown Oklahoma City. Kevin Lively mastered the effort. “(Gray) was a lifesaver,” Sanders said. “He worked very hard to get our vision across and was absolutely wonderful to work with.”
To celebrate the new release, here’s a few notes from Sanders about the creation of Haniwa’s new album.
1. The title “Violent Sun” is drawn from themes of love and betrayal. It digs into the dual nature of the sunbeing both beneficial and destructive. Can’t live with it and can’t live without out.
2. Unintentionally, the lyrics of the song “Dodecahedron” make up three stanzas, each with 12 lines. Sanders developed a fondness for the shape after reading “The Phantom Tollbooth” as a kid and has read a theory that says the shape of the universe is a dodecahedron. The track is about seeking a home for a complicated relationship and realizing that place doesn’t exist.
3. The album starts out with this ambient space roar. Walling crafted the sound from scratch, emulating the sound of the sun because NASA has the actual sound-copyrighted. At the beginning of another track, you can hear birds singing, but it’s a synth sound, too.
4. “Mecanique” is the most collaborative track on the album, and the last song completed for “Violent Sun.” Stafford started the tune off with a bare guitar riff. Sanders threw out some vocal lines inspired by the idea of communicating as machines instead of people, and Walling finished the lyrics.
5. Haniwa is ready for its first tour date and headed to Texas this weekend. Sanders hopes “Violent Sun” gives the band a boost outside of Oklahoma and helps them develop a following at home, too.
“Oklahoma City has so many wonderful artists who don’t have a ‘home’ for their genre,” Sanders said. “We like to support others like us.”