The Pitch: Is CANT an allusion to Can?
Chris Taylor: The Krautrock band? Oh, no. I think they're awesome, but no. Nuh-uh.
So where does the name come from, then?
I'm not even really sure anymore. I didn't really think about it too much. It could be a couple of different things, but I don't even know which one it is, anymore. I'm not even sure if I'll keep the name.
What does CANT allow you that Grizzly Bear doesn't?
Oh, you know — sing. Write lyrics and that. Kind of just determine the musical direction specifically to my own motives, desires, whatever. Unlike Grizzly Bear, which is definitely like trying to coordinate four peoples' opinions — which is a very good thing, and I enjoy that, too.
I feel like I've just been producing everyone else's records for a while, and working in my own band. It's a lot of other people's opinions, and it's definitely not an easy process to come up with music in Grizzly Bear. I just needed to have fun, maybe be a little bit seflish, and just do what I wanted to do, and just play around, you know? Without being told, “That won't work, 'cause it's too much like this” or whatever.
I just kind of wanted to have fun.
Yeah, just kind of like an openness. I didn't really want to clutter it. I, like, would intentionally stop. Kind of come up with a keyboard part, and a drum something, bass part, and guitar part, and be, like, “That's it. I just don't want to mess with it anymore.”
Whereas, in Grizzly Bear, I'll put all kinds of horns or weird things or layer all these things, and make kind of a denser structure, which is one approach, and on this one, I just kind of wanted to challenge myself to see how little I could have going on and pull off something that sounded musical and I liked, and really not mess with it. Just try and strive towards simplicity — I feel like that's the ultimate goal.
I don't know if I nailed it, but I definitely enjoyed its pursuit, and feel like it's a really, really productive exercise to work with limited means and kind of a minimal aesthetic.
Was all of Dreams Come True recorded at once, or in bits and pieces, as you had time?
Well, Grizzly Bear got off tour, and I started working on the Twin Shadow record [Forget] for about five months, six months. Then, about two weeks later, George [Lewis, Jr.] and I jumped in and started writing my record. We wrote at least the instrumental starting points of the tunes in, like a week and a half. Just kind write down a bunch of song-ish sounding things — but not, you know, complete songs — and didn't really do anything with it. I guess I was sort of, kind of, freaked out.
Starting the record was just kind of fun. We had no plans, just kind of went in and made stuff, and then when we walked away, I was just sort of, “Am I going to do this? What am I going to do?” I didn't really know what I was going to make of it. I'd never really written lyrics. I write a lot, but lyrics is a different thing.
So, yeah — just kind of spent time thinking about it, which I came to find was really useless and didn't really get me anywhere in terms of productivity. And so, in November, I kind of got back in there and met up with George, and we sort of readdressed the tunes and kind of fleshed them out a little further. Spent about a week and write some new stuff. I'd written some new things in between, and just spent about two months in the winter trying to figure out lyrics and all that.
I guess I kind of spent a lot of time standing away from it, being kind of intimidated about the whole process. It's just something I've always had a hard time doing, finishing a song. I tell myself, like, “It sucks,” before I get anywhere close to seeing a completed song, so this was basically meant to challenge the thing I wanted to do the most, but was hardest for me to do. It was sort of like a big personal challenge to me to do this.
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