Off the Record

DJ Lucid sits down with 3 members of the band Cigarettes @ Sunset to discuss their upcoming music, inspirations behind their songs, and being a part of the music scene in Boone. Tune in to hear their unreleased song "Shoulder Blades."

What is Off the Record?

Off the Record features interviews with local and national musicians as aired on WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2.

0:01
What's good everyone you're listening to WKNC 8.1 FM HD one Raleigh, where a student run nonprofit radio station based out of North Carolina State University. I'm DJ lucid, and this is off the record. Here with me today are some of the very talented members of the five piece band cigarettes at sunset. Welcome you guys. Let's do some introductions.

0:23
Hi, what's up? I'm Garrett. And I sing and play rhythm guitar, and yell at Ryland a lot.

0:34
What's up, I'm Ryland. I play lead guitar and get yelled at by Garrett a lot.

0:39
My name is Ethan. I play drums and I try to intervene on their yelling pretty often.

0:46
And then the two people that aren't here are doing really cool, important school stuff in that as well Wells on backup vocals and bass and Sarah on violin.

0:59
So where are y'all coming from today?

1:01
We are from Boone, North Carolina. But we're all a little bit a couple of miles away from Boone North Carolina rounds from Banner hour, which is like 30 minutes from there. And then I grew up an hour away and plum tree deep in the holler. And then Ethan is from what even call it. I'm from Waxhaw, which is for town in the very corner of the state. And then I came to upstate and just stayed in Boone wasn't quite ready to leave yet. Beautiful.

1:32
Well, we appreciate you guys driving down and being with us here today. One thing I'm always curious about when I meet bands is what's the deal behind cigarettes at sunset? I'm sure you guys get that all the time. But where did that come from?

1:49
Well, so I guess I came up with the name for it. We were up on this cool little viewpoint in town. And it was sunset, you know, we were out there. And we decided to be a great time to smoke a couple cigarettes. Then we were sitting there we were like, wow, cigarettes at sunset, that could be a cool band name. And that's kind of where it started.

2:10
That was moving. It was moving testament.

2:14
So I see cigarettes a lot and like your album covers your Instagram posts. would you guys say that's kind of a staple of your band.

2:25
Sadly, the branding is yeah, definitely a part of it. But I don't know it kind of helps have that fun, edgy side is kind of sad about promotional materials that can be

2:38
don't smoke cigarettes. They're bad for you don't do it. Don't smoke them. But the whole point of the band is like we were hanging out as friends. And so I guess there's some yeah, sometimes when you're young, you do things you shouldn't do. And, but that's also where the best stories come from. So that's kind of what I like to think the band name.

2:58
Very true. I love that. Okay, well, you guys have been working together for what over three years now? Is that right?

3:05
Yeah. Yeah, a long time. It's getting longer by the day, my friend.

3:11
So how did you guys meet and decide to come together as a band?

3:16
I met Garrett through a job. We were working together as raft guides. It's pretty cool. And then we met everybody else. Yeah, yeah. Basically, you met wells through the rafting but like, we weren't working there. We'd quit. We got a little tired of it. But um, Wells was working there at the time. And so we met him there. And he was in another band called Yes, dude. And we actually we have like a song with them. And they're great. And really, they're the reason that we like got into playing music live. We just made it at Rollins house. But then they like we went to a show or maybe you didn't go to a show. And then they played our song before we even played it. And we're like, oh, gotta do that. So yeah, everything through the rafting I feel like is how this all started. Other than Ethan Ethan was like this weird. Mythical ghost. I was the Craigslist fun.

4:13
Yeah, dude, that was like, yeah, that's just how I guess it all worked out.

4:19
We were really, we just like, we're friends. And it just it it's always worked that way. And that's where the music comes from, is just hanging out. Sometimes practice turns into maybe just staring at our phones, but in a collective circle, and we're doing it together. And that's what matters, you know? Right, right. We haven't practiced huge for team cohesion.

4:41
So you guys have been collaborating as a band for a while, but you've been friends for even longer. And how does that influence your writing process like the connection you all have?

4:53
It's huge. There's a lot of it that allows for a lot more open honesty in a band. And that's really important if you're making something that you want other people to latch on to? And that's something that I think we're really, really good about, at least in our own process is we have our own little checks and balances in place to make sure everybody can get on board with everything, right? Yeah, everyone likes, likes the songs a little bit different. We're all different. But we all have the same idea of how we want it all to feel at the end of it. And like, our big thing is it doesn't have sound perfect. It just has to feel perfect. If it feels good. I think it's really important to have like, everyone have a moment in each song where it's like, there's so that it's, that's how we record anyways, is we focus on making sure everyone has that perfect moment where they shot. And then it all works together. Because it just, you know, I keep dear listener, I have been putting my hands together, if you can hear it through the microphone.

5:49
Well, that was that was a really good answer. So would you say the actual process of making your music is that more collaborative or divided like instrumental and lyrics?

6:06
Collaborative, big time? Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah. That was like the, when we when it got started, we wrote this song called Ferrari. And it was just me and reiland At this point, and like me, and rollin didn't have anything and like, I was trying to write a song that I thought Robin would like, and then it just pushed me to be better writer. And that's kind of the whole point, I think, is we all just try to push each other to keep open minds and somehow make it all make it all work. cohesive. Ish, cohesive ish. Okay. We don't we don't want it to sound perfect. That's the whole point. Okay.

6:43
So even though you guys only formed together as a band a few years ago, you're still kind of a baby band, baby band. How long? Have you all been making music in general individually?

6:54
Hmm, that's a good question. I think I started drums when I was nine years old. And then started taking it actually seriously in college and then played in two bands before joining this one. And yeah, it was probably about five years ago that it got serious for making music on my end. I I like played guitar and stuff for a while. And then when I finally met Garrett, I realized that we could make demos and logic was pretty sick and very eye opening for me. That's kind of when I started, like, recording music. Yeah. I don't know, when I was like, 11. I guess I just was like, oh, I want to write songs. So I kept trying to figure out how to do that. But I did not know how to play an instrument. until like, seventh grade. Maybe I learned how to play the piano. But that was just like, I could play C and G and go back and forth. I didn't really figured out how to write songs until we all started like spending time together. Like I always knew what I liked in a song. Yeah, I've just I guess I've been I've wanted to do music my whole life, or at least since I was 11. And I guess that's when I started living. Because everything else before that is probably the unmentionable. So you said that Rylan and Garrett, you were the first two in the band? Yeah. So how do you think that your style or your music sense has changed since joining the band, or have you always enjoyed playing this kind of music? I think me and Garrett fight over what it's gonna sound like a lot. And I think it kind of works out sometimes. Sometimes it does. Yeah, I that was the thing. When we first started making songs. We didn't know what we wanted to make. Yeah. So we were just like, I mean, if you open that file, it looks wild in there. Like we can't, it's just crazy. But once, you know, people were like, oh, it's kind of good. We started figuring out like, what we liked and Wells was huge for like being a part of it. Wells joined after our first show. And at first, like we didn't know if he was just kind of filling in or not, but then he was like, it was integral that Wells had to be there and let alone he had to be like, one helping us write the songs. And so and then that just keeps happening with everyone like Sarah is more and more involved, like Sarah didn't join till the third show. And that was because we were playing in a parking lot, and across from Harris Teeter, and she grew up with Rock Island. And so we called her and was like, Hey, do you want to come play violin on this one song? We were playing Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. I'm sorry, listeners.

9:36
But she was like yeah, so she came in and she was like, sitting there learning it we had like an hour to play. And then we were just like yesterday, you want to stay up here with us. And then she played a couple more songs and then from there she was part of the bad and ever since.

9:50
She's also busy being in school so as well, so it's like really cool to see them as well as these guys like devote their time to as much as

10:00
We spend trying to do what we love. I don't even remember what the question

10:05
I get to get to chat, you know? Yeah. So your music style is what we were talking about. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. It has a really unique sound. There's a lot of elements that I feel like go into that like, there's like full, a little punk like a little indie. How would you guys describe your sound? What would what would you call it? Yeah, that's a good question.

10:31
I'm never on the receiving end of the questions here. Is it dad rock? Is it when you pit when we say the word nd It feels like we're way too into ourselves. And we're not. And then if you say pop, it's like, no, no, it feels kind of from the outside looking in, because I was just a fan of this band for months on end before I actually joined it. But it feels as if there was a country singer that had a bit harsher of a heavy face. And then a lot of distorted guitar came together. And then it's like, it's not quite punk, but it's getting close to it. I don't know. Genres are scary for stuff like that, because it's hard not to sound pretentious, but we're floating somewhere around there. Somewhere around like parking lot, punk.

11:21
I like parking lot punk. Or like, tractor angst, blues type stuff.

11:27
That's a good one. I don't know. I hope our music keeps changing a little bit. You know, I hope it's always like that. Like it sounds like there's a bunch of different stuff but I do hope it's like, gets different. I'm excited about that part. That's our favorite part is getting to make the music. Are there any like notable influences you guys take on? So many? So many that I try to get away with? Why don't you go first round? I think Ethan's got some good answers.

11:53
I'm the black sheep of this group. I'm into weird music. But um, for my end, it's like mainly instrumental stuff a lot of like modern jazz and odd sounds so pretentious to say out loud stuff like that. Just instruments going good. makes me really happy.

12:10
Man, I love Gavin DeGraw he's just this old piano. He's just like this great piano player and he could write a song and that was what got me into music. So it's like very to me. It means a lot to me.

12:24
But for the band, I don't know. I'd say like

12:28
Nirvana for sure. We listen to a lot of nirvana. I think a lot of the what our inspiration is is what me and rollin listen to and then what like our friend group just continues to listen to as a whole. So like Ivana Zak, Brian.

12:43
Tool.

12:45
What's the tool? What's a DJ diesel? Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel has a song called field like I do.

12:53
It's really good, man. I don't remember what, what like our inspirations are.

12:59
I love MIPS. So I love MIPS so much. Have you heard MIPS? So they're like from here? Really? Yeah. They're amazing. You should listen to MIPS. So they're great. And my dream is to one day after you know, we do this crazy punk thing, that we get a little quiet and we do like a really small acoustic album.

13:17
That's where I get that from. That's really random. Do you guys enjoy playing acoustic?

13:22
I do. Gary loves it.

13:27
I love playing in my band way more than like, I did the solo thing for a long time. for like five years before Ron asked me to be in the band. And this is the best way to play music with your best friends is the coolest thing you can do. Let alone the fact that someone asked us to come down on a Wednesday and do an interview.

13:48
This is awesome. So I'm glad to be a part of it. Thank you so much for having us. This is just it's just a hoot. Right? Like, I don't know. We're doing what we're doing. Absolute Holly. Absolutely holler. In the words of that guy from Instagram that Ethan likes a lot. We hit him with it even real quick. Just real close up on the mic that you hit him with real quick. Era.

14:10
DJ spin. That's a tough

14:13
one.

14:15
If I could explain the band, that's what it is. That's our sound. That's our sound. That is us. Wow. Cool. Okay, so you guys just came out with a new song just a few days ago. With Maggie Robinson row. Yeah, Congratulation. Thank you. Thank you. So what inspired this specific song? Well, so 4440 is a Rollins song. He wrote this like past January. And he just kept playing this riff over and over and over, and then we loved it.

14:49
And we made a version of it. And then, you know, we meet Ethan along the road and Ethan becomes this integral part of our band, but also, he is in another band called me

15:00
I get Robinson road. And that's him and his buddy and they did a remix 4440 And it was just really cool to, that's the best part about creating is doing it with other people. And we try to do it with as many people as we can. And so far we've like got to work with Ethan's band and our buddy Ollie. He's done a remix for us. And then we've worked with Yes, dude. And so whenever the opportunity comes that we can, like, make collaboration with someone, it just really rips. It's a really good song. I'm really proud of Ethan for like what he did with the arrangement, he made it a little faster. And it it's a little different from what we usually put out because it's just really heavy. So that that Ethan, Ethan, you should tell us how the song feels to you. Well, this song like fills a really unique role in our setlist. It's always kind of just our optional song at the end. For if it's rowdy enough, it's just our Mosh song. She's very simple. She's very loud. She's very fun.

15:58
I almost kind of like solid the whole time as like a doom soundtrack. Like those old 90 shooters, that's what it feels like. So I tried really, really hard to get a mix that sounded and felt like that. And it was like a goofy little side project that I ended up putting like a lot of hours into them, so we can actually use it if we want to. And it's awesome. If you guys want to tune in.

16:22
Do it.

16:24
Do it.

16:26
Do you guys have any other upcoming projects or albums in the world? Oh my gosh, yeah, I'm really excited about it. I love to talk about it.

16:37
So we put out this like album called Mr. Pukki in the star destroyers. And it was just like remake or not remixes, it was just like, it's like a mixtape, really, it's just a bunch of songs we made in the first couple years. And we hadn't like dialed in our sound. But this album feels like we're like dialing it in. It's that next step.

16:53
There's softer moments. And there's these big heavy moments. And we've just figured out like, we've got 12 songs. And we're like, probably 80% done. It's just tracking those last few little things. And that is what slows us down is we got to mix it, we got to record it, we got to master it and

17:10
just takes time. And then we're on the and then we're on the road a lot or playing shows whatever we can do. But yeah, the new album is cool. We have a new song coming in February, and then that's kind of like the rollout and then touring the summer. Wow, that's exciting stuff, you guys. I'm personally extremely excited for it. It's like, by far the most unique recording process I've ever seen for the album. Cuz me Garrett and wells all do a good bit of producing. So it's split almost evenly down to where we all produce different segments of it. And each of us just recorded it in someone else's bedroom for each song. So it feels really really homemade and like intimately done which is cool. Yeah.

17:53
I think it's I think it's our best work. Everything feels catchy. Everything feels good. There's a good flow to it. Yeah. And we're just now getting to the point we got to start to be able to play it live. But it's gonna be really, really cool. Next few months are going to be excited. Yeah. What do you think round? What are you excited about? Man?

18:12
It's pretty cool. I don't know. Tune in for some new ones. Which one do you like the most?

18:18
Say that again? Round. You don't know the names of any of the songs. I don't know the names of all of the songs on the album. The album is called a good year for hunting. And it's going to be out April 25. I think Can I hold you to that? I hope so. I really hope so. Yes, you can because I'm too what's the word? Stubborn to give up dates. Yeah, so that's our date and we're gonna stick to it so yeah, yes. Okay. Well I'm really excited. Thank you. And I think on that note, we're gonna take a short break to play y'all the dangers of banjo maintenance by none other than cigarettes at sunset

18:57
we'll be right back

19:19
I'm sorry

19:25
you now

19:28
reasons do you

20:00
Have

20:01
you changed

20:08
maybe you just don't know yourself

20:23
go back

20:27
strong

20:48
sorry

20:53
you now.

21:47
That was the dangers of banjo maintenance by none other than cigarettes at sunset? What is the message or the inspiration behind that song in particular, it's about how dangerous it is to do maintenance on your banjo. It can be quite the tedious and treacherous task for you to perform. Thank you so much for that simply because I don't know where does that title come from. So Ron had the chords. And we were sitting there, he just kept playing them. But Ron has this banjo that sits at his house that doesn't have all the strings on it. But the bottom string was tuned in perfect. And so the old demo is like, but it's just rollin sitting there playing the chords back and forth. And I'm playing the banjo. And we wrote like the first verse of the song, and then we kind of just left it. And then I was like, Ryan, what do you want to call it? And Ron said, the dangers of banjo maintenance. Well, now we get to talk about your performances. Do you guys have anything coming up in particular?

22:50
Yeah, we have two here in Raleigh. Wow. Yeah.

22:56
Wow, this in house audience is crazy. Oh,

23:00
yeah, we're playing on. We're playing with hot, windy on the street or something on December 1. I don't know where it is yet. But no, we're in Raleigh. And then December 7, it's a Thursday we are with wilt and step friends at Neptune's which we're stoked about everyone has told us good things about Neptune's and then we're playing with Dexter in the moon rocks and Mitchell Ferguson in Spartanburg, South Carolina Spartanburg is a crazy town and recommend it for everyone. Everyone just so, so much going on down there. It's a venue that is in the middle of a police station and a scrap yard and scrap yard. And it's like a mile long scrap yard. So the vibes are just awesome. But it's gonna be really cool show and hope people come out. If you would like information for any of those things. Don't feel inclined to but you could check our Instagram for information on that. And if you needed a certain amount of words to find that they would be cigarettes at sunset. You can also find that via Safari, or Google Chrome, or as my grandma uses Firefox

24:10
at www.cigarettes@sunset.com Cool.

24:22
All right. So when was your last performance fairly recently, right? Yeah. We just recently played at Petras in Charlotte, which is a really cool spot. And we played with

24:36
Alexa Jensen, and this dude named Leon Rosen, who is from New York slash San Francisco, I think.

24:45
Very random shot or even we just got it because he had heard the dangers of banjo maintenance somehow, and he messaged us and we got to go play and Petrus is really cool. We love Charlotte.

24:56
Some of our favorite bands are from Charlotte like Seneca burns and home for the day.

25:00
And they definitely touch back on what like inspires us. I think their their music and like the punk they carry is the punk sound that it's, it's very, it's very relevant for us when we go to the studio, we want to we want to make sure that we try to somehow bring that energy because like watching them play has been really cool for us. I was just at Taproom recently and we're at around the street as you guys are kind of Legends there you play there a lot

25:28
of Legends would be

25:30
like slightly glorified house bed, but

25:33
it was kind of in that vein, I think all of us have put in at least a good 2530 shows there. Yeah, I mean, we'd love Tap Tap has been real good to us, like getting getting shows like this. Some people are really good at it. But we're not the best at emails. And I was really struggling to get us in the bar scene. Like we were really only playing house shows and stuff like that for the first like four or five months that we're playing. And then finally tap, I message tap and tap was like, Absolutely, we'd love to have you. And then we had just some of the best shows tap. We were just talking about it on the way here. Like, just recently, we played one of our favorite shows altogether. And it was at tap and it was at like midnight. And just so many good people that I don't know, I don't know why they like us. But I really, I really appreciate them because it just gives us a chance to do what we love. That's really cool. So why don't you tell us the stories about your first live performances?

26:34
Well, the first six show was so crazy. And just so weird. We like we never wanted to play music. And then our friend Grady invited us to play at his house show. And we had two weeks, and we didn't have a drummer. So our friend Oh, and bought a set of drums. And he learned them in as fast as he could. We had eight songs. And then the day of the show it got cancelled because it was an outside thing and the cops didn't like it, blah, blah, blah.

27:03
And we were just like really, like, we just had proved to ourselves that we could play it live. So we really wanted to do it.

27:11
So luckily we found a spot called the lizard lot in Boone and rollin actually named it the lizard law.

27:19
And it's across from the Harris Teeter. And like you know, 100 people showed up for something and our friend Barrett opened and it was just so cool. It was the first time getting to see like how music can not just affect you, but like affect your community and affect the people that are around you. And our buddy Ali, we didn't have a bass player wells wasn't there yet. Our bass player was our friend Ali, who is I grew up with and taught me everything I know about music and

27:45
is special, Matt I loved it. It was a lot of fun. It was really crazy. We like barely pulled it off. But so so barely. Just so barely pulled it off. It was great. Yeah, yeah, it was what we needed to do. So do you guys tend to practice any band rituals before you go on stage? Yeah, we do every single time before we go on. We all put our hands in and we do some sort of chant on three. Yeah, yeah. Chance on three is important. I mean, Sarah is very

28:20
lazily. She's always

28:23
but when she's late, it's because she's like, very like she wants us to have a sweet treat. Sara Sara, like sweet treat. So she gets us a bunch of sweet treats like she introduced cakepops to us. Starbucks. That's about it. Yeah, that's about it. And she always brings us coffee. I once again, Lucy I forgot what the question was. That's okay. Cool. We'll move on. Right.

28:51
Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Oh, that's such a sweet sign sir. In the back. Your name's Rob. Oh, my gosh, you from Ohio.

29:00
Get here on Drive. Thank you, Rob. Okay. So boon is a really musical environment for up and coming bands. How do you feel that like living and performing and Boone has influenced your band in a good way in a bad way? I think it's just about like, all good things. It can definitely give you a bit of a false expectation of like how much investment people might have in live music in other towns. But it's definitely not a bad thing. Like it's Boone's, a really easy town to go out and see a lot of variety and performance and a lot of diversity and different sound. And it's kind of surprising that such a small and tiny place has that vibrant of a community it's really rare and cool to have that of our foundation. Yeah.

29:49
Yeah, boon is just like, man, there's so many talented guys that are playing there. I mean, you know, we were talking about babe Haven, baby.

30:00
Even that's how we know them as they were in Boone, they were the name.

30:04
And then you've got people like yes, dude, and something comforting and soul style Jaya.

30:12
I don't know just all these people, they're great people. And that's the best part is we play with them. And we've played with them a couple times, you know, and we all stand around each other. And we're a little awkward because none of us remember each other's names. But we don't want to let each other know that we forgot each other's names. But we love music. And just like all the people that are in Boone are great. And they're good people, and they care about the music. And that's what matters. I think that's like, as long as as long as a band that we're playing with is there to make music and do it for the community, if at all. And I don't know, there has to be some deeper healing aspect to it for me. So as long as a band feels that way, to me it just like I think it's really magical and Boon has that boon for sure has that food is a great place to have your roots in. Yeah, yeah, I am. But like, it is interesting, like going out and coming to Raleigh and going to Georgia. It's just, it's tougher, and you got to have sharp teeth, and you got to be, you got to be ready to bite off more than you can chew. Because that's just how the world works. It's fast. And you got to keep up. We do love that though. I love it. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's the best part. Right? So closing off, we're going to be playing for you guys an unreleased song by cigarettes at sunset. And before we go, could you guys tell us a little about the song shoulderblades?

31:31
Well, I wrote shoulderblades little bit before banjo maintenance. And then I forgot about it for a really long time.

31:42
But then there was one day,

31:44
in this past summer that I was I was recording and I wanted to make this demo. And then just felt really good. And so I sent it to everybody. And it was like kind of just to go back how we like make music is like, you know, well, we'll make a demo. I'll make a demo Ethan will make a demo around, we'll make a demo. And we'll send it to each other and just see how it feels. And this time was special, because Sara liked it. All right, this is huge. Sometimes it takes a long time for Sarah to critique a song for her to like, be like, Alright, I'm behind this.

32:12
And she she liked it off the bat. And really, it just got me stoked. And I love the song. I don't usually write like happy love songs. And this one's a happy love song.

32:22
And so I hope if anything, it makes you think about the ones you love and their shoulders. That was beautiful. Thank you. Thank you.

32:33
Hey, real quick, everybody here in the audience. I'm talking to you, Rob. Thanks, man.

32:40
Give it up for the audience today. All and more importantly, give it up. You're never DJ lucid over here. WKNC.

32:46
Let's give it up. Rob. Rob. No security, security. Can you grab Rob? Robin can't take your shirt off in here, man. Wow. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you. So why don't you remind the listeners where they can stalk your socials and listen to your released music. If you want to find us on Instagram, it's really easy cigarettes, dot ATT dot sunset. If you want to find us on the web, it's cigarettes@sunset.com.

33:16
We don't know how to use Facebook or with kids are calling x now. So that's really the only things we use. If you have any questions. If you want to book us at a show, please just message us we'll message back. It's usually all of us read in the Instagram and none of us know how to talk to people. So let's do this together. World all the streaming platforms. You know, Spotify, nice Apple Music, SoundCloud, yeah, Livewire, oh,

33:42
YouTube,

33:44
Roku TV,

33:46
HBO mags

33:49
in Netflix, and that's about it. You guys heard that. It's been a pleasure to meet you all. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and talk to me today. Thank Thank you. Thank you once again. Yeah.

34:03
Well listen to that crowd.

34:06
Hundreds, hundreds. I appreciate y'all for tuning in. And you can check out the interviews I do with other local artists at wknc.org/podcasts by clicking on off the record. I'm DJ lucid, this is off the record and you were just listening to cigarettes at sunset on WKNC 88.1 FM HD one rally. I'm gonna send you off with one more song by our friends called shoulder blades that is currently unreleased. So make sure to tune in Erin. Thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time. Let's get along

34:40
the blue

34:43
watching the cloud roll

34:49
no show shoulder blades lacking joins just about anything. those shoulder blades the lucky ones that

34:59
matter

35:00
Are

35:01
you

35:04
are you on

35:12
a talk to you

35:22
My

35:33
name is

36:04
talk to you

36:14
My