“For us, this is the end of our first era,” says Akron/Family bassist Miles Seaton, discussing his band’s third full-length release. “This is the point where we’re like, ‘Ok, now we can stop and look at where we’re going and where we want to go.’ This concludes chapter one. (Guitarist) Seth (Olinsky) has a song where one of the repeated motifs is ‘I just got to the top of the mountain only to arrive at the bottom of another mountain.’ That’s where we are. We’re just wondering what we’re going to do now.”
Of course, before the indie folk artists move onto chapter two, there is the business of unveiling and touring behind Love is Simple, their surprisingly straightforward follow-up to 2006 avant-psych opus Meek Warrior.
Having spent much of the last four years playing epically long shows and earning heady comparisons to avant-garde and psych-rock icons, the experimental quartet had already proven its ability to design complex multi-part arrangements with shifts in tempo and texture and gorgeous, layered harmonies. They decided it was time to experiment with the experiments. They’d make a classic rock album.
“There were a couple of songs where we were like, ‘Oh, this sounds a little more like what we listen to,'” Seaton explains, admitting that he has been far more influenced by classic rock than the legion of psych-folk bands that have been listed as favorable comparisons to Akron/Family.
“For me, it’s got a lot more stylistic references than a lot of our stuff. We kicked around a lot of concepts about it, and one that was kind of big was having a more traditional album. For this one, we wanted to write some songs and pay tribute to some of our heroes — like the Beatles or the Dead.”
With that said, those perceiving any desire for commercial viability in Akron/Family’s move toward conventional songcraft are recommended to think again. “It’s more of a subtle direction than us thinking, ‘Okay, we want our next album to come out on Sony, and we want to play huge stadiums with Gwen Stefani,” Seaton laughs. “If it manifests as that, fine. I’ll hang out with Jay-Z on his private jet. That would be psychedelic.”
– Matt Fink