By: Liv Hauck

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/vocal 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 vocals, 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 shit. 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.

Check back tomorrow for the rest of the interview!