Metaphysical Transitions: In Conversation with Lilacs & Champagne’s Emil Amos & Alex Hall

Standing alongside Alex Hall outside Manchester’s Band on the Wall, Emil Amos brandishes a tin of Capstan’s Ready Rubbed tobacco. Smiling, he recounts it being the inspiration behind Ready Rubbed Blue – one of the tracks from Lilacs & Champagne’s first album in nine years, the fittingly titled Fantasy World.

On this mild April evening, the concern is Grails. Returning to Manchester for the first time since 2017, the latest incarnation of the band sees Amos and Hall joined by Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed and AE Paterra. Building upon a live experience that is now etched in underground folklore, Grails’ current tour has seen them pivot, reacquainting with their first two records, The Burden of Hope and Redlight.

At times their performance feels like the intricacies of Can being blown apart by a thunderous, mongrelised version of the blues, as perennial crowd pleasers like Silk Road and Outer Banks make way for the woodsy majesty of Space Prophet Dogon, The Burden of Hope, and Word Made Flesh. It’s intense. It’s mesmerising. It’s Grails at the peak of their powers.

“Back in the early 2000s, you still made music with four dudes in a room and mics on each amp, recording live,” recalls Amos, during our conversation over Zoom weeks earlier alongside Hall from their respective bases in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Malmo, Sweden. “We were always trying to get out of that kind of claustrophobic, limited world. But looking back now, we can understand the profundity of what that early sound brought. It took us a long time to be able to objectively view how special that organism was.”

Following last year’s excellent Anches En Maat, Amos and Hall took the Grails adventure through another gateway of their ever-evolving sound world. And this continues under the Lilacs & Champagne banner with Fantasy World: outlaw psychedelia with no currency.

Holy Sons: Dread

Oscillating between the vestiges of glam, hip-hop, cinema and the carnival of horror the Butthole Surfers left in their wake, Amos and Hall orchestrate a brand of open-source malevolence through technicolour portals. It’s all brought about by the pair zeroing in on boundless creative instincts, maintaining the principles of their “no rules” mission statement.

Masters of the cosmic conscience, Amos and Hall reach this point through the sheer rebellion against organisation and the dismantling of parameters. The rule book, and Lilacs & Champagne exists to vaporise it. It’s the same rule book Syd Barrett went to the greatest lengths to reject, and while Fantasy World taps into that Barrett-esque absurdity (led by opening gambit, Ill Gotten Gains), Amos and Hall haven’t lost their minds.

Fantasy World is built on the freedom that no rules afford. It can go where it needs to go, and there’s no better example than the collaged mutiny of Evil Has No Boundaries and Leprotic Phantasies. It’s moments like this that capture the liberalism of the Lilacs & Champagne experience. A landscape littered with the history of music and Fantasy World is a celebration of it.

Elsewhere, the neon blur of Rude Dream is something that sees Lilacs & Champagne flirting with the dance floor. Unlike the beautiful reverie of Melissa and Gentle Man – head music primarily designed for come downs. On the flipside, there’s the filmic undercurrents of Betraying Yourself and Dr Why – both of which operate across the same black frontiers Grails explored during the Black Tar Prophecies series.

The odyssey continues with the aforementioned Ready Rubbed Blue – essentially the ’80s soundtrack to a film you’d expect Robert Redford to have starred in, while No More Sherry merges the early origins of hip-hop with easy listening tailormade for candlelight dinners.

The only people telling you this shouldn’t work are those adhering to the same organisational practices Amos and Hall have spent their career defying. And it continues on Fantasy World. An album that is the genesis of anarchy. Once again, Amos and Hall run the gauntlet, creating something fearless, radical, and bravely original. And like always, the destination is unknown.

Sun 13: Can you tell us about the album title?

Emil Amos: “Fantasy World was meant to be a somewhat literal title. Like if every band wants to see their sales go up and the audience screaming etc. What would a record sound like that’s naive of those aspirations? Lilacs & Champagne would rather go to fantasy world. It’s totally different.”

(All laugh)

Alex Hall: “And for people who happen to be from Portland, it might remind them of this infamous adult video chain called Fantasy Video. There’s a bit of a sentimental tie-in there.”

S13: The first impression I got was that the record reminded me of Syd Barrett’s tumultuous years, in between the distorted reality of Pink Floyd and after his involvement with them…

EA: “I think you’re on to something. It was said Syd Barrett experienced music as colours and this record definitely has a kind of colour-based, impressionistic logic to it. With records like Danish & Blue, we were trying to bring the darkness to the front. But this record is more playful, and Syd had that attitude, for sure. With a name like Fantasy World, it’s trying to announce there’s no ceiling to the free aspect of sound as a starting off point.”

S13: In past conversations, we’ve discussed the freedom of using different musical styles as an opportunity to go beyond the borders. Do you see Lilacs as the ultimate endpoint to that notion?

AH: “We’ve talked a lot about the freedoms we have with Grails. But Lilacs felt even more free, more lawless and more anarchistic. So yeah, there really isn’t anything style-wise or subject-wise Lilacs couldn’t tackle. There are no expectations placed on it by us, the label or the audience.”

EA: “In most watershed moments of art or music… someone’s generally just doing something people previously thought you weren’t allowed to do. It’s not necessarily about shattering the barrier of new ideas as much as standing on the shoulders of other ideas and making a leap of faith from there.”

S13: Do you think the acceleration of tech has blunted the edges of youth culture? Do you think youth culture today is as radical as it was when you guys were younger?

EM: “There’s a different field in front of them. The same amount of intelligence is out there, but our culture is at a different stage of viewing itself. It’s at a different stage of the story arc. I wouldn’t say we came from the most radical era. 

“In Hastings we got to hang out with Simon Crab from Bourbanese Qualk, a killer band that’s inspired us. It feels like those guys really seized upon brand new freedoms during a very vital time of the underground in the early 1980s… so we always feel like we’re catching up to tons of abandoned threads in music history and still have a lot to learn from the older heads. Which is really why we hunt for records – to expand our vocabulary. 

AH: “Emil and I talked on the phone for a long-time last night about this new wave of personalised content streaming within the AI revolution that’s being served to people based on an algorithm tailored to them or a string of adjectives they type in. I was thinking about that and feeling relieved that we’ve at least tried to make this music as strange and obtuse as it can be. Because isn’t that inevitably going to be a new objective? To make music that AI can’t make and make it better? Maybe we’ve always been on a path that’s growing stranger by its own nature, but it seems like there’s really no other way to approach the new world.”

EA: “If AI could simply make technical execution faster and easier, then in a positive sense it could reduce artistic pursuits to the pure, best version of an idea. In the world we grew up in back in the ’80s, people constantly lectured you on things like mic placement to an extent that was pretty absurd. It felt like all people would talk about was technique, types of strings, wrist control etc. How many times did we go in the studio and had engineers say, ‘I’m hearing A LOT of phasing here, we should re-record this’. We were always like, ‘I don’t hear anything… can we just keep working?’ People spent hundreds of hours talking about phasing. Fast forward to now and it turns out nobody cares about that shit at all. Everything gets squashed down to a shit MP3 anyway. The culture we grew up around is getting done away with, which was this whole thing based on technique over the idea.

“Fantasy World attempts to expediate things and take you to the world of the pure idea quickly. And in a world where people seem to have given up on message-based rebellious music and just want to feel good, I suppose we’re saying, ‘Okay, then we’ll just create our own Satanic version of that…’

S13: You guys are what I would consider to be of the quintessential crate digger breed. Was this record any different in process to, say, Danish & Blue or self-titled? Do you scour your archives for samples, or is it a clean slate approach for each record?

AH: “It’s a lot looser than that, but yeah… a lot of the samples are things we’ve been sitting on for years. It’s not really a clean process.”

EA: “There was probably a time where Grails and Lilacs records reflected exactly what we were listening to at the time. But this record discarded any timeline, because it had been nine years since the last record, so we had a lot of ideas that needed to be collected and brought into focus.”

S13: Jesus, it’s been nine years since the last record!

AH: “I pulled out a copy of Midnight Features Vol. 2 recently, the last Lilacs record, and Jay Clarke and Zac Reno were in the band. It was a reminder of like, ‘Holy shit, it’s been that long!’ Those are our old Portland friends that were in the live version of the band we’d put together. That feels like lifetimes ago at this point because we’ve lived in Berlin and NYC since then and moved on from those places years ago, too. Our Portland life feels very far in the distance.”

EA: “It was 2012 when we were really still practicing together in PDX. And a couple ideas on this record (Melissa and Rude Dream) may’ve even begun back then. It takes serious time and work to collect this stuff… so you end up developing super intimate relationships to these samples when you live with them for so long. If you were to open a thrift store filled with these things you’ve collected, you’d know exactly what’s worthy of putting out on the floor just from years of shopping for this shit. You know exactly what can’t be used and why.”

S13: Lilacs feels like a travelogue from all the inspiration you got out of touring the world over the years with Grails. Grainy and hazy outlier psychedelia but done from really fucked up angles. The first record commands a different response for me every time, whereas there’s a very dark thread running through Danish & Blue. The two in isolation are very bipolar to me…

EA: “You’re probably right about the aspect of travelling and obtaining influences over the years. On the first record, we didn’t even have the ability to pitch shift… it probably shouldn’t have even worked so we we’re a little shocked it still stands up confidently. By the time we got to Danish & Blue, we were getting really comfortable making this bizarre form of malevolent music so there’s a certain excitement to the darkness on that one.

“As we go on, we always have new technology to scrub up and improve recordings… but it’s weird how it never seems to really make a difference? You can get better and better, but it never seems to matter because it all comes back to the way a recording makes you feel. That’s the beauty in the anarchy of it… nobody can really buy the religion of music. It will always elude the right decisions.

“There’s a story of how Glyn Johns tried to re-create Paul McCartney’s bass tone on Paperback Writer. They got the same mic at the same distance to the same amp and replicated it perfectly on the same tape machine and it sounded nothing like the original! There’s something about the acceptance of total relativity in the power of what Lillacs does… this Taoist acceptance that we could come at it backwards, forwards, sideways or on any drug, and it’s just going to be what it wants to be. So, we dive into that lysergic swimming pool and slap a cover on it at the last possible moment to keep the chaos brewing until the final deadline is up.”

S13: Are there any moments where certain aspects of this project have crossed over and you’ve used it in Grails, or vice versa?

EA: “Sometimes we might send the other person a sketch and the other person just immediately says ‘No, that’s the other thing.’”

AH: “Yeah, it’s that simple. Grails just isn’t allowed to be funny in the same way. So, if something’s extra dark in a naughty way that always gets moved over to the Lilacs column.”

S13: Talking about exchanging files, you’ve been living in different parts of the world. Do you think that your immediate surroundings influence the work of both for Grails and Lilacs?

EA: “In the very beginning, yes. We’ve been digging through the archives and finding the earliest Grails sessions we did, and it’s taken a long time to really see what the band was. We were so busy hurrying and debating, travelling and running into work early to have a ton of perspective on what we were making. It was a total blur, but I think we were partially a product of a certain time and spirit in Portland, Oregon.

“In the early 2000s, you still generally made music with four people in a room, close mics on each amp and played live then and there. So, we began entrenched in that reality and then continuously tried to get out of it.

“Later on in the decade, we were in more of a ‘veteran phase’ and were like, ‘This band is a concept and ultimately just an idea’. You’ve done all the development, released your early statements and you can’t keep doing the same thing. At that point, the wheels are built and the vehicle exists… now it’s got to actually move forward.

“We have a working method we had to develop for survival. Through the 2000s it eventually became based around the advantages that computers offered after Alex and I really put in the time to learn how Grails needed to be mixed. As Alex has said in the past, we lived on the unglamorous side of the music world for some years, sitting in cold basements in the dark while everybody else went to parties. But we built a functioning, working method, and now it works for us wherever we are. So, the answer is no. There’s no Malmo on this record.”

(All laugh)

AH: “I don’t think there’s ever been a perceptible influence of our immediate surroundings. There might be a few records where you can hear that we were extra depressed at the time. More depressed than normal. I would say that’s really the only time you can hear our immediate circumstances. We just had a conversation about Black Tar Prophecies 4,5,6 recently. That was a really dark record and that’s not a coincidence. We were in really fucked up places during that one.”

EA: “There’s a kind of high to sending records like Danish & Blue or Fantasy World out into the world. If a 13-year-old kid in Alabama whose dad only listens to Bob Seger gets his hands on Fantasy World as their first record… That’s going to fuck that dude up! (all laugh) His whole conception of getting a job at Roto-Rooter and entering the workforce may get smashed sideways. And that’s what happened to us too, right? 

“There’s probably a palpable aura within Lilacs or Holy Sons where you can feel that the artist knows they’re well beyond figuring out they’re somewhat fucked but is celebrating it instead. As Duncan [Trussell] recently said, ‘Music turns victims into heroes’, which is a brilliant way of explaining the transformative power of art.”

Corridors of Power: 20 Years with Grails

S13: You’ve been creating music together for so long. Is there ever any creative conflict in your songwriting alliance?

EA: “It’s just so practical, isn’t it? It’s all about pure functionality.”

AH: “I wouldn’t say there’s a ruthlessness in our method necessarily, but there’s an editorial responsibility. You have to have that.”

S13: A gatekeeper?

AH: “Yeah, there has to be some objective party to say, ‘That’s not right’ or, ‘You’re overlooking this’. But I wouldn’t necessarily call that conflict. It’s just a necessary part of the process.”

EA: “In any family, in any relationship, there are constant connotations within the way people express themselves. And people who read too far into connotations can get lost in perceived meanings to the point where they can’t trust others and accomplish anything. But in a functioning, happy and healthy relationship, you’re able to speak to each other, not take things personally and keep your eyes on the prize.

“We’ve been thrust into professional situations and had to deal with it from day one together. Even for the very first Grails show, we both felt under the gun and had to sort of feign a legitimacy we weren’t totally sure of… under the very immediate pressure of needing to put something real in front of people. We never had time to flinch at the fact that compromise is the glue that keeps the ship together.

“An understanding family lets you be who you are. But this family’s also trying to create something great, so you have to put yourself away sometimes.”

S13: Do you think that Lilacs best represents your personalities as people in terms of all the projects you’ve been involved in?

AH: “I might find myself more in some of the Grails stuff just because Lilacs is more deliberately obtuse or funny… so maybe because it’s a little bit more experimental and postmodern, it may not express a personal belief necessarily.”

EA: “Conversely though, the opposite could be true, too. Part of the myth of Minor Threat was that they were the most over-serious band, to the point where Ian [MacKaye] wouldn’t even sing In My Eyes twice in the studio. He was like, ‘I sang the song once and that’s what I meant’. But behind the scenes, they were also the silliest people… you always have to create some kind of psychological balance. So, if the other guys in Grails were to describe Alex as they experience him in the tour van… he can be totally light or novel in his sense of humour… so maybe Lilacs brings his sense of humour out alongside the darkness to create a fuller picture of who Alex is, rather than just brooding around the clock like Grails can do at times.”

AH: “True. I think one of the reasons that Emil and I get along the way that we do, is that we have a way of dealing with life by laughing at everything consistently. There’s nothing we can’t laugh at. So, Lilacs probably expresses that philosophy a little bit more.”

EA: “From Shakespeare to Kierkegaard there’s always been this notion that if you don’t have the safety net that a deep sense of humour provides, you will implode and dissolve. Humour is the last vestige… Lilacs take that as a militarising jumping-off point. Lilacs had to be born so we could continue making Grails.”

S13: There was a quote from your friend James Blackshaw that said, ‘After we’re gone, maybe the art will eventually reach only those people we meant it to go to in the first place.’ That felt like a really poignant statement which got me thinking… will you guys always make music?

AH: “I think that’s a yes.”

EA: “When James was talking about that it was the last night of tour and we were sort of debating about the shit state of the world and his take was very Zen in saying, ‘I’m just going to do what I’m going to do and maybe it’ll land where it needs to land’. That’s the beauty of how James is wired, while I’m much more anxious or aggressive and have trouble letting the world just lie where it sits at times. We’re all wired differently, but there’s a beauty to the fact that we’re inside this Venn diagram together. I’m just still some kind of idealist for better or worse… which is probably what fuels the constant dreaming of new records.

“Duncan was explaining to me on a recent podcast that you’ll never really understand the effect of your own contribution, so it’s fruitless to even look for what you want to see happen in the world while you’re alive. Your ideas run down into these collective energy canals and over the centuries the rebel forces are all essentially harmonising in this larger choir.

“Maybe there’s a kind of wilful shrugging back at the world in Lilacs’ music in ways. We have no commercial responsibility to the world. We’ve pulled down all the toys off the shelves and have made a big fucking mess. And now everybody else has to deal with it.”

(All laugh)

Fantasy World is out July 19 via Temporary Residence. Purchase from Bandcamp.