Rock n Roll Boston!

The Everyday Visuals: a band that is their own inspiration. A band striving to bridge the gap between mainstream and underground, and aren’t afraid to admit doing so. A band with members who wrote songs before they knew how to play instruments. A band with one motive: to create the music they love (and maybe to make some money while doing it).

The band combines indie, pop, heavy guitar, folk, Beach Boys-esque harmonies, effervescent vocals, the lead singer’s love of Nirvana, and accessible lyrics; the result of these different elements is indeed a sound that offers something for everyone without sounding contrived or unoriginal.

Lead singer Chris Pappas’ vocals are intimately delicate while maintaining passionate veracity. His light tenor is particularly distinguished on “I’ll Take It All In Stride.” The song opens with barebones keyboard, providing the perfect structure for Chris’ elegantly vulnerable opening lines. Interspersed between the unsettlingly tender keyboard/vox duet, ethereal harmonies and joyous melodies glide flawlessly over orchestral-like instrumentation.

For a sampling of the heavier side of The Everyday Visuals, listen to “Limb to Limb”. The band mixes their trademark lilting harmonies and catchy melodies with spirited guitar and a gritty foundation of drums and bass.

Chris Pappas (lead vox, songwriter, and guitar) and Eli Scheer (guitar, keys, and back-up vox) of The Everyday Visuals sat down with me and discussed their position in the music world, music blogs that piss them off, and how the band got its name.

Liv: Tell me about how you guys met and started making music together…
Chris: After college, I was living up in NH with my drummer friend Joe. We decided to make a record together with our friend Kyle, and Media Crush (2004) was born. After that, we started playing shows in Boston and getting a local following. In 2005 we lost our guitarist, and were introduced to Eli through mutual friends.

Liv: What do you listen to that makes you say, “Whoa! I want to try something like that!” What inspires you?
Chris: Everybody has their influences, but we draw ideas from so much more than music; everyday happenings, art, what we read…all that stuff. But as far as early influences, what really set the foundation for the kind of music I aspire to make would be Crosby, Stills, and Nash and The Beach Boys. Actually, the first music I really got into – that wasn’t on the radio or what my parents liked – was Nirvana and The Breeders…the whole grunge movement. Discovering that music was when I grew into my own consciousness, and when I decided, “Hey, I wanna be a musician”
Eli: I lean towards the Beach Boys, Radiohead…Sigur Ros is big for me.

Liv: What’s your songwriting process?
Chris: Some writers feel like songs are something they have to tap into; like the songs are there waiting to be plucked from the atmosphere. For me, it’s more like a feeling. It boils up inside of me and bursts out. It’s like getting hornier and hornier, and finally having an orgasm. Once I have a lyrical idea or song in my head, we start from there and build around this idea. Sometimes all the pieces are already there, and I’ll bring the song to the band and be like, “Ok, Eli, you sing this part and this part. Joe, play this drum beat…” Or pieces will be missing and we’ll jam and work it out until everything comes together.

Liv: Do you transcribe your music?
Eli: We can, but it’s super tedious. I had to do it for our last CD release party; we interwove an art opening with the release party, and one of the artists wanted me to write out the music so she could paint on it.
I wrote a verse and a chorus, and was like, “That’s it!”

Liv: Where do you see yourself going with the band? Dreams of making it big?
Eli: The basis of our band is making music as friends, and the ideal is “making it big”.

Liv: Goals as a band?
Chris: You can’t really plan what you do with your music. Because then the music becomes contrived. You gotta let out what naturally comes, and see where it fits.
Eli: You keep in mind, “This is what I’m doing, and whoever likes it can listen!”
Chris: What I’ve started to notice about our fans, and our music, is that we have something for everyone. I’ve heard talk recently of the two musical cliques right now: the underground indie rock scene, and the mainstream scene of Coldplay and Jonas Brothers. And neither genre has offered up anything as of late that has been able to speak to both sides. That is what creates longevity in a band. There hasn’t been a band, for me, that bridges the gap between mainstream and underground. I think The Everyday Visuals has one foot in each world. We’ve got really noisy sections that are just off the beaten path to satisfy the indie crowd combined with sing-a-long choruses that appeal to all.

Liv: Are you afraid of the indie crowd accusing you of selling out?
Eli: It’s not an issue; we are the indie people, and we are the pop people. It’s not one or the other, it’s just who we are. We’re all influenced by both groups; it becomes impossible to distinguish between the two. Pop hits, indie hits: who cares. We create what we love.

Chris: There will always be those people that will look for things to not like about us to suit their own agenda; especially certain music blogs out there. A blog like Pitchfork? I feel like one out of every three reviews they do has to trash a band, just to seem like it’s hard to get a good review. There have been many occasions when they’re like, “This band is the best thing since sliced bread!” and I check out the band…and it’s a pile of sh*t. Their scoring system is completely arbitrary; what’s even worse is that the person who writes the review doesn’t do the rating! So even if the reviewer likes it, the editor could give it a crap rating.

Liv: Are you bitter because Pitchfork gave you a bad review?
Chris: They haven’t reviewed us. I don’t know if they will, nor do I care. The only reason I’d want them to review us is just to get our name out there. Even if a band gets a bad review, people still check out the music.

Liv: What’s been your favorite live moment?
Chris: There hasn’t been a precise moment…it’s hard to say. It’s more like, the mood or the atmosphere. I love feeling like the underdog, feeling like no one’s gonna like us, then we sweep in and win the crowd over. With those shows in particular, we do it by really connecting with the audience. Those are the best shows.

Liv: On a personal note, I think your show at the Paradise last year, when you opened for MuteMath, was spectacular.
Chris: That was definitely a top ten show.
Eli: The MuteMath show was cool because we got called to do it only two days before the performance. I don’t know if the opener dropped off or whatever, but when the Paradise called, we were like, “Absolutely!” That show was also interesting because even though it was a local show, it wasn’t our crowd. Those people were there to see MuteMath, and we got to see a different fan crowd of Boston.

Liv: Describe your rock show experience; from the pre-show routine, to being on-stage, and hanging out afterwards…
Chris: Before the show, we definitely make it a point to huddle for a moment of quiet. Eli is the main proponent of gathering everyone together.
Eli: It’s important to have that minute to focus before going onstage.
Chris: Once I’m onstage, I like to explore the stage space, both mentally and physically. When we were at Great Scott for our CD release party, there was this pipe above our keyboard, and I jumped up and hung from the pipe (imitates hanging from a pipe, monkey-style). Being onstage grants you a certain license. Imagine us being out for drinks, and I get up and start hanging from pipes.
Eli: After the show we all are usually so spent we go home. And we share one van, so that limits the possibilities as well…

Liv: What’s your group dynamic like on a personal level? Is it a blessing or a curse that you all are really good friends?
Eli: You have to be really tight with your band mates. We have to get along. We’re together for twelve hours, driving in a van. We share one hotel room when we go on tour.
Chris: When I’m sleeping with Eli in a double bed at the Quality Inn, I have to be his friend. There’s so much you can fight about as a band, and there’s so much you can fight about as friends. We keep it seperated. We have the understanding that any fight or conflict we have as a band comes from wanting to use different means to get to the same goal. We try to trust each other as best we can that we all have the band’s best interests in mind.

Liv: What’s been your biggest conflict?
Eli: We’re perfectionists. We micromanage. That’s been a problem. Although in the long run, having a team that can control everything is obviously beneficial.
Chris: It’ll be nice to have the money someday to be able to micromanage everything! I have to say though, I’ve been playing with Joe [drums, keys, and back-up vox for TEV] since the mid-90s, and we’ve never had a major fight or falling out. I think that’s impressive.
Eli: As in any relationship, keeping the lines of communication open and having a common purpose is the most important thing.

Liv: How did you come up with your name?
Chris: My friends and I were sitting around my college dorm, and we were like, “We need a new band name.” So we each picked up a book, and decided to point to random words and agree which combination sounded best. But what happened was my friend picked up The Visual Dictionary, and at first glance I thought it said “The Everyday Visuals”. We put that on the list of potential band names, and in the end, the other ones were just so bad we picked The Everyday Visuals.

Liv: What were some of the other names?
Chris: Grandpa’s Gotta Have It, Scrote Smell Bunnies, The Nightingales…and I mean Scrote as in Scrotum.

Article and Photos by Liv Hauck