Maria Limon from Music, Why Not! caught up with Kristyn and Jared Corder from the indie band *repeat reap at this years SXSX (2018). Read on as they discuss the beginnings of the band, their song writing techniques, first albums, and more!
MWN: I’m curious first to know, how did you guys become a band? Where did those come from?
Jared Corder:We became a band, I went to Nashville to be a musician and I started working on a new project and I needed a girl singer. She heard all the songs and knew all the songs and I auditioned some girls but they didn’t work out. So I asked her to sing on some demos with me and our producer heard the demos and said “I think you found your girl singer.” We were just kind of like “okay”
Jared Corder: We always thought that I would travel with him, but I just wasn’t going to be “in the band.” So that changed. She didn’t move to Nashville to set out to be a musician in a rock band. It was never something we really…
Kristyn Corder: I just married a musician. So we were like “okay, let’s do this.” And from there it’s been a fun adventure. It’s fun because I’ve played in a dozen bands my whole life. Watching her do this for the first time is really a trip for the both of us. Our first ever show we played we took some video in the back, it was really good and sounded great. This is before she had other instruments to play and she unknowingly herself was playing air guitar. I still don’t think that that happened! There’s an urban legend that I barely strummed on my right side, but I don’t know. It’s debatable!
Jared Corder: It’s fun to watch her do this for the first time. It’s an exciting experience for me to see that. Because you get kind of jaded after 15 years of doing it. Seeing someone with the shine in their eyes about it is really exciting.
MWN: Did you grow up with music? Did you always want to be a musician? Were you influenced by your parents or?
Kristyn Corder: Yeah! It was kind of a mixture of my parents forced me to do piano when I was a kid, and I hated it at first, but I was grateful after!
Jared Corder: Yeah, totally! When I got old enough, I knew I wasn’t good at sports, so I had to figure out something to be good at to have a girlfriend. It wasn’t sports, so I picked up my dad’s guitar. I was like, this is something I can do. It was the initial basis of it.
Kristyn Corder: He lived in Arizona and broke his foot at the beginning of summer. When you are in junior high in Arizona is the summer, the only thing to do is outdoor stuff, water stuff. SO he just picked up his dad’s guitar.
Jared Corder: All of my friends were at the pool or the lake or going camping. I couldn’t do any of that all summer. SO I sat in my parent’s house and played guitar.
Kristyn Corder: He’s a very productive person. So I have no doubt he went “if I can’t do that, I’m going to learn guitar! I’m going to become a musician this summer” and you did it.
Jared Corder: I had other friends to who, I was a little chubby short kid. I had a buzz cut and wore Hawaiian shits and I didn’t know what I was doing. I had bleach tips and black fingernails…I realized at some point I’m not good at skateboarding, not good at outdoors things. I wasn’t good at boy scouts. So, this is what I’ll do. I ended up really liking it and being good at it. I really took to it…
Kristyn Corder: When we met, I just knew that we would all follow him forever. I had no idea he was going to tour to an indie band. Now, we can’t imagine it any other way.
MWN: What is the type of music you guys grew up listening to? Was it influenced by your parents?
Kristyn Corder: My dad is the oldest of seven kids in California, so he had a bunch of surfer siblings. They were all super California from the 60’s and stuff. My dad raised me on a lot on The Beach Boys and Everly Brothers. It was retro, harmony heavy-stuff. That became a big part of what I do. It’s how I dress. My whole personal culture is defined by that. When they put me in the band, it was like…” This is what I do, so I hope this works.”
Jared Corder: Mine was the opposite. I few up in a really conservative Christian home. If they weren’t listening to worship music, they were listening to Sugar Ray, or Chumba Wombat or I don’t know. I did not want to listen to that music, so I was in Phoenix and six hours from the coast, so Listened to West coast punk. I listened to Green Day and shit like that. A lot of punk rock…At some point I painted my nails black and wore spikes and dyed my hair black. I wanted to be a punk rocker.
Maria: When it comes to making music, how do you guys go about that? Does It start from a jam session or do you have something set in mind? Do you go to the studio wherever you’re writing with an idea of what you want to?
Jared Corder: Usually I’ll think of an idea. A lot of times it’ll start with something I want to say. What is the idea I want to get across? The tagline almost. Then I start plucking around on the guitar. Maybe even just a line or to that’ll be the chorus or a verse. From there, I’ll make the skeleton of the song. I’ll show it to Kristyn. She’s my first line of defense on whether or not the song will fit for the band or not. It’s never this song is no good or anything, it’s always just…
Kristyn Corder: I’m very partial to him and love everything he writes, but not everything fits this band. Sometimes by job is, “That sounds amazing, but you should give it a break. That’s good for a later-in-life solo album, but for this band there has to be some consistency.
Jared Corder: From there I’ll take it back, and if it is a fit for a band or whatever, I’ll take it back and finish up the song. I play drums and bass too, so I’ll figure out all those parts. Then we’ll send it to our team. From there it goes down the pipeline. Then once we’re in the studio, it feels like it always changes immensely at that point. We’ll have an idea for what the song is going to sound like and then we’re in the studio as we’re creating the sounds, it starts to change.
Kristyn Corder: Usually not the writing. You usually nail it on lyrics, but the sound and the vibe.
MWN: Sounds like a very natural, dynamic process between both of you. It’s cool to see you work together.
Jared Corder: I went to school for music and college for guitar, so no matter how good you are, there’s always going to be people who are doing better. That taught me not to have a lot of pride with my music, because of that I’ve learned through a process if she says “I don’t think this is a right fit” I know she wants what is best for the band. She’s going to be a huge part of it. Sometimes you can be too attached to your own art.
Kristyn Corder: Because I didn’t go to school for it, I don’t have those rules. I’m like “what about this?” It kind of gets him out of the hang-up that he is at. I think the way we work together is, I think our music is really 50% your sound, 50% my harmonies and choruses. To me, the music seems to be a total combination of both of us. It has to come out in the process of where he starts and we go back and forth.
MWN: Now we’re going to play a set of fire-round question, so be ready! Do you remember the first record you ever bought?
Kristyn Corder: It was Austin Phillips?
Jared Corder: Mine was Green Day’s Dukie.
MWN: What would you say your favorite love song is?
Kristyn Corder: I think “Archie, Marry Me” by Alvvays. They can do no wrong.
MWN:Wherever home is, what song reminds you of home?
Jared Corder: Andy Shauf, and the song is called “The Party” because we spent 4 months last winter every morning we’d put that record on, and all day long with that song on repeat. It’s the quintessential winter song. Now any time I hear that song, it’s us in our house with our pets.
Kristyn Corder: So the first thing that came to my mind is “Pumped Up Kicks” We’re dating and that song was playing everywhere all the time. We’d drive around in the band van and sing it like crazy. That’s the first thing to come to my mind: When we were dating and singing Pumped Up Kicks every 5 minutes.
MWN: Now to wrap things up, this isn’t a fire-round question. This is how we take all of our interviews, what do you hope people get from your music? What do you want to tell the people who will be reading this interview?
Jared Corder: I think I grew up as a punk rock good guy, so I grew up wanting to stick it to the man but respect the woman. I have two sisters and my mom, and I think a lot of our music comes from the perspective of, whether it’s a love song or anything. It comes from good guys and good men should be celebrated and be put in the forefront of art and culture.
Kristyn Corder: We feel like we’re out here spreading love and good vibes. That’s what we want people to feel when they hear our music. We want you to feel love. I think in our industry there’s definitely a discord. Especially in our society, it became more and more important people get a good feeling good vibes and happy and peaceful and energized. To contrast the social landscape.
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