Fighting Life's Little Wars: An Interview with Thunderbird Divine

Plus, a sinking fund for my elderly cats.

Aug 16, 2024

Hi, friends! This installment is a little longer because I’d rather send one long email than blowing up your inbox constantly. Today we have an interview with a killer band, followed by a bit on how sinking funds can help prepare you for upcoming expenses.

Philly psychedelic stoner rockers Thunderbird Divine are about to release their most ambitious album yet: Little Wars, due out August 30th on Black Doomba Records.

Frontman Erik Caplan (at right in the photo below) took the time to answer all my weird questions in great detail, revealing the craft and concepts behind this album. If Little Wars sounds like your jam, the preorder starts TODAY! Get your digital or vinyl copy at Black Doomba’s bandcamp.

What is the band's songwriting process like? How has that evolved with newer members Joshua Adam Solomon (bass) and Jack Falkenbach (keys)?

We spend a lot of time throwing ideas back and forth, and each of us has a somewhat different process. We've learned to focus on each others' strengths. For example, my personal writing style involves coming up with a few riffs or chord progressions that feel good or interesting to me, and I bring them to the rest of the band at rehearsals. Then we'll throw those ideas around until something locks together. Josh's style (bass) is more concrete--he'll often record a demo with both guitar and bass parts played to a click track. He'll email the track to me, and I'll fool around with it. Then we'll follow up by tweaking it around at rehearsals, adding things, subtracting things, until it feels right. Jack's (keys) strength is his instinctual feel for adding the right elements to an existing arrangement. He's got an incredible ear and a great ability to look at the big picture of a song in a non-standard way, and then he will add special tweaks or moments to take the whole song to another place. Mike (drums) doesn't play any melodic instruments, but he has a very strong sense of mood and feel for the concept of a song and is highly capable as an arranger.

The most important part of the overall process for the band is our great respect for each other--we will pursue any musical idea together in an open-minded way. Sometimes this results in magic, and other times it can lead to a dead end. No matter what happens, we take the journey together.

You talk about a "very involved" recording process in your press release. Would you say the recording for Little Wars was more involved than previous releases? How does having a recording engineer in the band change (or not change) your workflow?

I'd say the recording was quite a bit more meticulous than previous releases. We rehearsed every aspect of every song until we felt confident with them, and we did full demo recordings of each song in our rehearsal space. We took those demos to Josh's studio (East Airy Recordings) and did something very close to a full production, including vocal layering and any other special sauces we wanted to try. We used these demos as the foundation when we went into Retro City Studios to track drums in their wonderful live room. We then took those tracks back to Josh's studio, where we decided what we wanted to use from the demo tracks. Sometimes, the takes from the demo couldn't be surpassed, so we kept them. Other times, we fully removed every track besides the drums and rebuilt the track from scratch.

Josh's studio and his expertise as both an engineer and a producer were essential on every level. We weren't forced into a time crunch with tracking. We could go to his place essentially anytime we wanted, and we weren't restricted by the clock. Most bands don't have that kind of luxury. This also meant I could come over, try a vocal recording and decide my voice wasn't up to the task. We could switch gears and do something else instead. We'd keep the forward momentum happening because we knew we had access to the studio whenever we wanted to record. That was freeing.

I love the creepy old-timey vibe of songs like "Old Black Crow" and the instrumental closer "Carousel." Where does the inspiration come from for these tracks?

"Old Black Crow" was written by Mike for one of his old bands. It was a very garage-y sort of song, kind of heavy and, in my opinion, worth a reboot in a different style. The lyrics were great -- a descent into alcoholism and/or lunacy and paranoia. However, I felt the track could use a somewhat different arrangement and freakier instrumentation. I took the essential chord progression and transferred it to banjo, which gave it an unsettling feel. Josh added an upright-sounding, thumpy bass line, and Jack worked his magic with keys. Mike's vocal was done in one take as part of the demo process, and we couldn't bear to part with the vibe he captured that day. After the basic tracks were finished, we knew it needed more embroidery, so in came the theremin, water pipe, drone machine, lap steel, audio samples, and various other tidbits we felt were necessary in order to paint the full picture of the song's story. I'd call it a sound painting.

"Carousel" started as something Josh had tracked on guitar, sort of a Russian minor-key waltz thing with elaborations. I knew it had some magic in it, so we edited the arrangement and started layering. Jack played some truly lovely lines, and those elevated the entire track. His piano and organ additions are emotionally stirring. I added the lap steel, and it just felt like a great "end of album" track.

I'm very proud of both of these songs.

You also have a carousel in the beginning of the video for "Last Laugh" -- what made you choose this imagery/motif to appear throughout the album?

The word "carousel" is a Spanish/Arabic term that translates to "little wars" in English. Carousels were small-scale reenactments of battles performed as games for entertainment. Eventually, those games became carnival rides for children. Many folks live their lives by treating each challenge they face as a small-scale war with a winner and a loser. But nobody wins life--you take the ride and go around and around until it ends. There's some element or story about this subject in every one of these songs. We felt a carousel was the right way of sharing that message in a visual way.

You're working with a different label this time around, Black Doomba Records. I love Tommy! Tell me about how you got hooked up with Black Doomba.

I don't think we've met a single person who has anything remotely negative to say about Tommy. He's a very smart, kind, honest and transparent man who loves music. We were fortunate to work with Scott Harrington of Salt of the Earth Records for our previous releases, and he's been a very close friend for more than a decade. Scott loved Little Wars but knew he would be too busy with other things in his life to give the album the time and attention it needed, so he reached out to Tommy to see if he'd be interested in working with us. We'd met Tommy at the Maryland Doom Fest previously, and we hit it off with him, so we already knew each other a little. We spoke with Tommy and sent him the album, and he loved it right away, so he offered to release it on Black Doomba Records. Getting to know Tommy and his wife, Laura, has been a distinct pleasure. They're wonderful people, and we feel incredibly fortunate to know them and work with them. And, of course, we have Scott to thank for thinking of this pairing. We're lucky to have such great people in our corner.

Any live performances coming up?

Oh yes, we’ve always got something brewing. We don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet, but we'll be out and about in the latter half of 2024 and early 2025.

Preorder Little Wars here.

Thanks for reading Jessie’s Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Okay, now back to money. Since I’ve been more intentional about “personal finance stuff,” I’ve been reviewing my budget twice a year: once after the holidays and once in the summer. Each time, I try to make some small improvements…

This summer’s improvement is starting a sinking fund for my cats’ annual vet checkup — which in June, cost over $1700! (Two elderly cats…) I anticipate that this expense will occur for at least another couple of years. This year, I had put it on a 0%-interest credit card; I have until September 2025 to pay the balance before they start charging me. It’s not for everyone, but I’ve been using this strategy for large purchases since I was 18 buying Bonnaroo tickets and I haven’t screwed myself over yet.

Still, as I stared down a year of credit card payments, I thought to myself, “I have to pay for this either way. Why not just save up for it in advance?” I hadn’t done this before because it made my imagined cash flow very depressing. And y’know what? It is depressing, especially paying for this year’s vet bill and next year’s at the same time. But I’m biting the bullet…

So, what is a sinking fund anyways? It’s is more of a strategy than an account — money set aside for a future planned purchase. Think car, vacation… Vet bill… Where you keep the money is up to you. My checking account has just been an undefined, slushy sinking fund for a long time, which can potentially get me into trouble thinking I “have” more money to spend than I actually do. To be more deliberate, I set up an bi-weekly auto-transfer to my high yield savings account (HYSA), where the money will earn 5% interest until I transfer it back to pay for next year’s vet visit.

“That’s great, Jessie, but I don’t care about your elderly cats.”

Okay, here are some action steps, no matter what you’re saving for!

Brainstorm large purchases you will make for the next year or two. Do you want to go to an awesome festival next summer? Do you know your car will need its 90K tune-up in a few months?
Open an HYSA if you don’t have one already! Here are some FDIC-insured suggestions from Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/best-high-yield-savings-accounts-4770633. Many on the list have no minimum balance requirements.
Divide the amount you need by your time frame and set up automatic transfers. Woooo, you just created a sinking fund!

What do you think you could use a sinking fund for? Or if you already have one, what are you saving towards?

Jessie’s Substack

Fighting Life's Little Wars: An Interview with Thunderbird Divine

Plus, a sinking fund for my elderly cats.

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