Santa 423 copy_2teats
It’s the hottest summer on record. Lucky for us, a band is about to roll into town that is the epitome of perfect, light, bubbly summer music: Santah. As crisp and refreshing as its name implies, this Champaign-Urbana five piece's sound is reminiscent of the quirky rock of The Shins, as well as the upbeat twang of Band of Horses. Santah recorded its first full-length studio album, White Noise Bed, in the late Jay Bennett’s Pieholden Studio last year, so the band’s show this Thursday at Cicero’s—the same place indie favorite Wilco debuted their band in November of 1994—will be an artistic homecoming of a sorts. Santah’s yet-untainted love of the road and its exuberant, frolicsome music is enough to inspire even a shirker of heat waves to brave the St. Louis summer and head out to catch the show. St. Louis Magazine had the chance to speak with bassist Otto Stuparitz about the new album and the tour, which kicked of July 22. —Kelly Moffitt
SLM: So you started your tour for White Noise Bed last week; how has it been going?
OS: The tour has been going really well: we started in Iowa and have been stopping in cities we’ve never really been to before. Everyone really accepted us and invited us back, so I’d say its been going well. People have clapped at the end of the show–-for a first tour you can’t really ask for more.
SLM: What’s the best part?
OS: Financially, its been great; we’re actually ahead so far, which is not the norm. I mean, its crazy, this tour is even lending a hand to our songwriting. We’ve already written a song for our friend who let us stay at her house. We were sitting there, and she had gone out to get some beer and Vivian [McConnell, vocalist and sister of guitarist Stan McConnell], said, ‘We should write her a song right now to thank her.’ So we did and we’re finishing it up right now. We’ve had a lot of fun making friends and connecting with people on this trip.
SLM: Your music seems to have a little bit of everything.
OS: It all comes down to the basic guitar, and then we add a groove and try to keep that constant through our record. But off of that groove, the songs become their own thing. By keeping the process moving forward, we try on different sounds.
SLM: How was the recording process?
OS: We started recording two days after we reunited from the summer. It was the first time we finalized our sound together. We had exchanged songs via the Internet, and came in with six songs ready to record and six songs half done. For those last six songs, we’d record one week, push the song as far as we could, go out for another week, and come back and record some more. I think that is how the songs have such distinctive qualities.
SLM: Sounds a little like the college kid’s cure for writer’s block.
OS: Definitely. Doing it piecemeal over time makes the album flow with time. I would do another record like that, and leave songs to become what they will become.
SLM: What is it like to come out of a college town...would you have started any other way?
OS: It is nice, because there is a lot of support for new music and emerging artists in Champaign-Urbana—all upcoming bands help each other get there. I’m having trouble thinking of moving out, but at least while we are on tour, it will remain our home base. For a bunch of guys, and now a girl, who don’t really have a home to go to right now, it's a good place to have. We’ve got some very loyal fans.
SLM: What is the funniest story on the road thus far?
OS: For me, it was when we were hanging out with our keyboardist’s parents. They asked us about what everyone’s biggest idiosyncrasies were. Of course everyone said something, but no one really believed it. We have really all worked well together--even in our problems, we’ve come out of it with no major beefs with one another. We’re actually doing it, getting out there, and we’re having a blast. That’s funny to me, because everyone else’s first tours haven’t seemed to work out quite so well.
SLM: What are the best ingredients for a good concert?
OS: There’s gotta be a good stage, a good sound audience, and an audience that is maybe a little drunk. For us, it's all about having people who want to listen, not necessarily to us, but who want to hear good music to get their good moods going. That’s why we loved Cicero’s the last time we were there—it was a crowd of music lovers who didn’t want to simply jam out to pre-recorded sound. As simple as that sounds, it's not as common as you think.
SLM: Any taglines for the tour so far?
OS: 1) “Nothing better than having a good time!” 2) Screaming “Hap Parker,”the name of our van. He gets us there, and that is the most important thing right now.
Santah performs at Cicero's (6691 Delmar, 314-862-0009, ciceros-stl.com), July 29 at 8 p.m. The band will also be opening for Surfer Blood, Fang Island, and Cults at Champaign-Urbana's Pygmalion Music Festival on September 23rd.
