Cal in Red talks debut album and their biggest inspirations

By: Grace Srinivasan

Grand Rapids-based brother band, Cal in Red released their debut album, Low Low. They celebrated the release of their album at the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids. Come join 777 Collective and Cal in Red as we dive into the upbringing of Cal in Red, tour life with Bastille, and creating Low Low! 

Photo: Alex Bolen

777 Collective: Prior to Cal in Red, you guys were in Myrtle. Would you mind talking about your experience transitioning to that?  

Kendall: Connor was still in high school when Myrtle started, and he kind of like aged out of that, and we were living in a similar collegiate situation at that point, and we're just in like a more similar walk of life. We worked together at the same job. We had a lot of the same music taste. We were listening to a lot of the same stuff. Originally it was just us messing around in his bedroom with the drum set and guitar. We started eventually tinkering and writing similar things and meshing those together. Connor bought a bunch of recording equipment and figured out kinda how to do that. We did a few songs and started playing shows and we liked it.

Did you take any inspiration from Myrtle and move that to Cal in Red? 

K: We weren't the primary songwriters of Myrtle. 

Connor: Yeah, we were only performers.  

K: He played drums. I played guitar, but we didn't really write any of the parts. Maybe we like adjusted things, but it was just more of an outlet to like write our songs.

C: It was a great experience though. It was the first time we got to play some shows. That was the first band that we got to play with the Shins, which were some pretty cool experiences and just kind of learn more about the music industry in general.

K: Our cousin was the songwriter of Myrtle. Cal in Red’s very like melody focused. We want things to sound good and I think we maybe took some of those cues and learned how to write from him in that way a little bit.

Did your cousin kind of push you into doing music, do you think? 

K: We actually, we joke about that. There's this picture of us at a family reunion. When we were like, I was probably like 6, and he was like 3, or like 7, and he's like 4. Our cousin's like 4 years older than me, and there's a picture of like the two of us on the bottom row of kids, and he's kind of like looking down, and we joke that he was like plotting that one time. 

Did you guys ever see yourself being in a band growing up together? 

C: No. We didn't do music stuff at all growing up. We were just river rats. High school sports, uh, we went down a river that we grabbed crayfish with our hands in the summer. 

K: We didn't really do anything musically. I didn't get a guitar until I was like 18 or 19. Connor did like percussion in high school, drum corps. But we never thought we'd be songwriting. It wasn't in the plans at all.

Photo: Chromatic PR

Have you found it to be a hard balance being both business partners and brothers?

K: There's an ebb and a flow to it. A push and a pull. It can be tricky for any group that's living together. Trying to create together, in an ultimate goal of trying to make a band or something work and then you attack the brother aspect on top of it. And like, 24 years of history, 25 years of history, like, 26 years of history. 

C: I feel like we've definitely been working towards just having mutual respect for each other is what really makes it happen. At the end of the day, cause as you were saying, we are business partners and creative partners too. That's a really vulnerable thing and when you talk to a random person, you're like, yeah I live with my brother. They're like, oh, I could never do that like, I hate my brother. But then putting on top of the business side. Yeah. But I think it works well, 'cause we definitely respect each other. 

In celebration of performing Low, Low tonight, is there a specific song that you're most excited to perform? 

K: I really like doing Frontside live. I think that's a fun one.  

C: Yeah, I think Frontside brings a blast of energy that we weren't really expecting when we recorded it originally. 

K: We speed it up a little live too. 

C: Jonah, our guy playing drums, he's got a couple songs that he can really let loose on outside of what we recorded.

K: He brings the heat on that one. 

Were there any other names that you were deciding between when picking the name Low Low? 

K: Not really. It was originally going to be an EP. It was going to be like a five, six song EP that we're going to put out this year, like early, like February ish and we scrapped that idea pretty quick in order to do the full album and just push it back a few months, but Low Low was always kind of, because Boyfriend was a track that was written and released last fall. It almost became this little inside joke for the two of us, that phrase.

C: It was a lyric that I wrote and he was like what does that mean?

K: Yeah, I thought it was stupid at first I was like, why don't you just say solo or too low, or down low or something? The song is, like a good amount inspired by this tour we went on, we were on the road last March together for an entire month, just the two of us, in a truck, we played like 20 shows over a month, and all over the country. I think that song, we began writing it on that tour, but, like lyrically, it touches on that and there’s an aspirational energy to it. We got back from that tour and we drained our funds and had like no money. And we struggled to pay rent for a few months. That's kind of like the low, low, like it ultimately was just a joke about our financial status because we had done all that and then we're like, shit, we're out of, we're out of funds here. So it was a little inside joke between us. 

C: Very reflective on the journey of the past few years.

Didn't you guys also open for Bastille? 

K: Yeah, last September. 

How was that experience? 

K: It was insane. 

C:  It was great. Yeah. 

K: I almost threw up. 

C: We haven't had one of those since the shins, which were like six, seven years ago. So being on a stage of that caliber. It hadn't happened before us. That's crazy. As Cal in Red actually, yet. But yeah, Kendall was almost throwing up in the bathroom before we went on. Yeah. I mean, Kendall, he's played in front of some big crowds. 

K: We've played in front of a lot of people. It was just different, like, there were like over 2, 500 people, I think. There was a better part of 3,000 people in that room. And that's just like a different level. A packed pyramid scheme is awesome, but when you multiply that by whatever, but it was great. 

C: Plus people aren't there to see you. 

K: So you're going in trying to impress as hard as you can. 

C: And if you look out and you see those front row faces.

K: Yeah, I thought back to the I remember our first show we played, opening for the Shins in Niagara Falls, like six, seven years ago, like he said. I was looking down at the people in front of me. playing guitar, just trying to like, stay focused. There's this one dude leaning against the railing, just, just an absolute stank face, no emotion the entire time. I just like, I saw that face in my head and was like, Oh, I don't want that to be this too. 

My favorite song is “1985”. Can we talk about the production a little bit? and how that process went? 

C: Yeah, that's one that I just made, completely as it was almost like a joke slash songwriting challenge where I was playing on a synth from the 80s and there was a patch on it called the 80s and so that's where like the beginning keys came from and I was like, alright, I'm gonna find some 80s drum machines, throw in some really cheesy tasteful lyrics, um, like nostalgic about the 80s and so it all just wrapped together to be this fun little two minute song, which doesn't correspond with the album that well, but I think it's a little treat.

What was your biggest inspiration when creating this album, any artists that you took inspiration from?  

K: We've shared some bigger artists from the start, like Porches is a huge inspiration for us. Like the Tame Impala sound that, like the Currents production specifically, that record. And there's smaller bands like Husbands and French Cassettes. Shout out to those guys. 

If you could collaborate with any musician, dead or alive, who would it be? 

Jonah: It's weird cause I'm considering compatibility versus like pie in the sky and I think the first name of anybody to be around would be Paul Simon, I don't think that would be the right energy. I think honestly, Luke Temple is top of the list for me who was in Here We Go Magic. 

C: It'd probably just be one of the influences. Maybe some Porches or something, 2018 Porches maybe.

K: I think it'd be fun to work on a song with the guys in Toledo, the band. I think they would be fun to collaborate with.