It's time now for the latest installment in our Tiny Desert Concert Series. We’re featuring a local duo called Snailmate. Their music sort of defies characterization — here in the office, we’re going with synthpop rap.
In the video we shot with them, they’re performing at a UFO memorabilia museum in Scottsdale, next to a statue of an alien.
The bandmates — synth player and lyricist Kalen Lander and drummer Bentley Monet — formed the group about 10 years ago. They sat down with The Show for an interview to accompany their performance.
Full conversation
KALEN LANDER: When we started, I was just a rapper and a producer. I’ve made beats, been making beats for 20 years now, and writing songs that way by myself. But when we started, Bentley made it very clear that he would not just be drumming to tracks for me.
BENTLEY MONET: So I was basically like, “You have to learn an instrument if you want to be in a band with me.”
Because he was like, “Hey, your band’s breaking up. My band’s breaking up. Let’s start a band.”
And I was like, “Well, you have to play something.”
SAM DINGMAN: What was important to you about that? About having someone else actually playing an instrument?
MONET: I just really like how the dynamic of a live show goes and how it can be faster or slower and there’s actual energy to it. And it’s really important to me to have that energy and connection with somebody when you’re playing. I like when you can change up the song. Not that we really do that ever, but like there’s been a few shows where we make things longer or shorter or something.
And it’s nice if one of us makes a mistake. If it’s live, we can catch each other up and fix it. And if there’s a track, the track is gonna keep going. It’s so unforgiving. Like if you mess up and the track doesn’t, it’s just gonna keep going and it’s gonna be a big disaster.
So it’s nice when there’s like the live element and there are gonna be mistakes. You can meet each other and fix it. And so basically I was like, “Put down the video games and pick up the synth,” or I mean whatever. I didn’t tell them to play synth. I was like, pick an instrument.
LANDER: When we started, I actually played a little bit of bass guitar on a couple songs, but it’s not my forte, and I was finding it a little bit limiting. So what’s beautiful about synthesizers is you can make all sorts of sounds. You can do bass tones, you can do really harsh things. You can do melodic, pretty sounds.
And so it’s like, well, this is gonna give us the most bang for our buck.
DINGMAN: Sure, sure.
LANDER: And I can approach it like a video game. And I still kind of do where it’s remembering patterns and things on there. I don’t have any music theory background.
DINGMAN: Sure. I have to ask, because video games have come up a couple times now: What’s the video game thing? Are you the video game person? Are you guys both video game people?
MONET: Not me. I hate video games.
LANDER: And they’re a huge influence of mine ever since I was a little kid. The music in video games and the approach to it.
DINGMAN: What are some formative games for you?
LANDER: Sonic the Hedgehog growing up. The music of those games with its kind of like new jack swing, really percussive beats and kind of funky bass lines and weird synths.
[CLIP FROM "SPRING YARD ZONE" FROM SONIC THE HEDGEHOG PLAYS]
They had a little 16-bit Yamaha chip that they had to make all of their music on. And so they found different ways to just tweak these two or three oscillators to make a snare and a kick and hi-hats and synthesizers and bass lines and all this stuff and approximations of guitar and with a very limited palette.
DINGMAN: Bentley, I have to ask, what do you dislike about video games? Because you said like, “I can’t stand them. I don’t like them.”
LANDER: What’s your problem, bro?
MONET: I just don’t like ...
LANDER: Fun. He doesn’t like fun.
MONET: No, to me fun is being productive. And working. I love working. I love booking tours, I love practicing. Like, I love band practice and stuff like that. And if I’m not being productive, I don’t want to do it.
DINGMAN: Yeah.
MONET: So to me, that’s not a productive outlet.
DINGMAN: Kalen’s saying that like the music of video games was a source of early inspiration. What for you fills that space?
MONET: Well, when I was younger, I mean I played video games when I was younger for sure. And I discovered punk music and stuff through Tony Hawk games. But that was when I was in middle school.
And then I kind of gave up on the video game stuff. That turned me on to MTV because I was right at the cusp of when there was still music on MTV.
So I really grew up waking up and turning on that and watching all the new music videos. And I’ve always loved music videos. I think it is so cool that people have like a story to the song, and it’s not always what you would think it would be.
DINGMAN: OK, so this is a great segue for me to one of the things I’m really excited to talk to you both about, which is in the vein of the story not being what you would expect it to be. One of the things I enjoy the most about your guys’ music is its hip-hop lyrics.
And I know I haven’t listened to the full catalog, but at least in some cases, like you have the song “My Gross Disgusting Body”?
LANDER: “My Weird Gross Body.”
DINGMAN: “My Weird Gross Body.” I’m sorry.
LANDER: No worries, it’s close.
MONET: That works.
DINGMAN: Speaking broadly, so much of hip-hop — and I’m not saying this in a negative way — is about puffing oneself up. Is about aggressive forms, particularly of masculinity. Is about expressing ego, about how awesome you are, how skilled you are.
LANDER: Skills, braggadocio.
DINGMAN: Yes. It’s about bragging. It’s about real kind of like self-mythology.
Your guys’ lyrics are often about the idea that like, “I am pathetic, I don’t like myself, I’m having so much trouble existing.”
LANDER: It’s like the inverse.
DINGMAN: Yes.
LANDER: Kind of, yeah.
DINGMAN: Talk to me about expressing that idea and using hip-hop to do it.
LANDER: I think it’s goes back — and I’ve written songs about how dope of a lyricist I am, and how I’ve got these sick skills and how I can land chicks or whatever. And they just, they’re not fun, and they don’t feel genuine. And they’re not. And a lot of hip-hop is not genuine.
But it goes back to the reason I got into hip-hop, writing hip-hop is because I had these beats and I had these song ideas, but I could never sing. And it’s like, how do I make a song that’s interesting using my — at this time especially very limited — range and skill set?
And it’s like, OK, I gotta find other ways to use my voice. And so I know that what I was going through and what I still go through about my own feelings about myself are not unique to me.
DINGMAN: Right.
LANDER: And so if that can help people. But also that’s just what I am. I guess it’s another form of self-obsession, whether it’s the mythologizing or just talking through it. But yeah, it just kind of came natural.
DINGMAN : That’s a very interesting idea that it’s still self-obsession. It’s still mythologizing. It’s just as you said earlier, it’s kind of the inverse of the energy that you get in other hip-hop songs.
LANDER: Yeah.
DINGMAN: Well, this seems like a very opportune moment to hear one of the songs we’ve been talking about. What are you gonna play for us?
LANDER: This is a song called "Trash, Baby," and it’s about imposter syndrome and feeling like everything you make sucks. So I guess it’s very appropriate.
MONET: My therapist said I have that.
DINGMAN: Mine, too.
[SNAILMATE PLAYS "TRASH, BABY"]
Bentley, talk to me about your connection to the subject matter of the songs. You do contribute vocals on the songs as well.
MONET: Yes, he makes me. It started out as a joke. I would start screaming at practice, like literally as a joke, and then he’s like, “No, you have to do that on the songs.”
And I was like, “Oh, that’s going to be hard to do.” But, yeah, I relate to all that. It’s funny because I don’t think Kalen really listens any sad or emo music.
And I do. That’s my jam. So this is like a good mix of it’s sad enough but still funny and like, whatever, but interesting. I can relate to any of that. That’s all I like is, like, emo music — not necessarily the genre emo, but just like sad songs and weird, depressing lyrics.
LANDER: And I can’t stand sad sad songs.
MONET: Yeah. Which is why he makes them funny.
DINGMAN: Sad songs are your video games.
MONET: So that’s why he makes the sad lyrics funny, I think, is because he doesn’t like sad songs and I do. So it’s relatable to me. But, yeah, the lyric thing literally started as a joke. I don’t think I was ever going to do any lyrics.
LANDER: Vocals.
MONET: Or vocals in the beginning.
LANDER: Yeah, now it’s hard to think of, to write a song without it. And I’m like, “OK, I’m going to write this part for Bentley,” and it’s obviously opened up a lot what we can do live. Because otherwise it can be very one-note.
MONET: Yeah. He’ll make me learn the song on the drums, and then I’ll get it down. And then he’s like, “OK, now I need you to scream here and sing here and do this.” And I was like, “Oh, now I have to relearn the whole song because drumming and doing vocals is not easy.”
DINGMAN: Yeah. How do you think of Snailmate as a project? Do you think of it as a purely musical project, or is it more than that for you?
MONET: To me personally, it’s like a lifestyle for sure, because it’s an energy. It’s like a collective in my head. Like, all of our fans know any of our shows are a safe space to come to. And the videos are dark and creepy, but I wouldn’t say our shows are dark and creepy.
I think there’s different elements as far as the music videos go. It’s like the songs are online. Anyone can interpret them the way they want. The music videos we have are mostly more on the dark side. I think I’ve died in, like, three of them. Or four? I don’t know.
LANDER: No, it’s true.
MONET: Yeah. They’re all completely different. And then our live show, I feel like, is like “We’re funny and fun, and we’re gonna go crazy and all have a good time together.” ...
LANDER: With songs about, you know, being depressed and hating yourself.
MONET: Yeah, yeah.
DINGMAN: Well, let’s have you guys play one more song to take us home. What are you gonna close on?
LANDER: This is a good song that has to do with what you’re talking about. This is “The Laziest Man in the World.”
MONET: That’s this guy.
LANDER: Yeah. It’s a song about how I don’t like doing all the things that Bentley loves to do. I’d like to do nothing. Maybe play some video games. So here’s that.
[SNAILMATE PLAYS "THE LAZIEST MAN IN THE WORLD"]
