In this interview, we dive into the creative journey of No Time For Caution as they unveil their latest album, Thief in the Grove, following their 2023 release, The Days Are Long, But The Years Are Short. The band continues to explore the Post Rock genre, crafting a soundscape that reflects the personal experiences of its members, Ryan Crosby and Lars Ewell. With a focus on growth in their songwriting, they aim to provide listeners with a rich canvas for their own narratives. Fans of This Will Destroy You and Explosions In the Sky will find plenty to appreciate in the lush melodies and driving rhythms of this latest work.
Q: In your opinion, what are the essential qualities that make a “good songwriter”?
A: Musicians who know what is needed to create emotion for the track are who I would call good songwriters. The musicians who have a knack of knowing when it's the right time to leave space, create tension, go crazy, etc just operate on a different playing field. In Post-Rock you don't rely on words to communicate your narrative as a writer, you utilize movements and attempt to create a "world" where the listener is feeling something unique to them. In our genre I think those I'd label as "good songwriters" are the ones who are able to get you to forget you're really even listening to anything because it just becomes part of life in that moment.
Q: What is the basis for writing attention-grabbing music in this day and age?
A: The amount of things fighting for our attention has never been higher. To stand out these days I think you need to have a singable melody or just a filthy, filthy groove. Our brains are just getting blasted with distractions now adays which is why I think more short form music is the focus right now. People live in Reels and Tik Tok and you have to get your message across in such a compressed time. Kind of a tough place for Post-Rock to live but I believe that it still has its place in that world. You see it narrate these big moments in people's lives and that's well, that's kind of the point of it right?
Q: Can you pinpoint some specific songs and songwriters that changed the way you write music?
A: Maybeshewill-To The Skies From A Hillside is an example of what the genre is capable of doing in a more traditional song length format. The song is a bunch of shorter sections/movements that bring out so much emotion and tie together so, so well and then the payoff is glorious. As the song progresses it moves to a section that has layers of Hardcore "happy noise" tension and immediately resolves it into a beautiful piano riff with a disgusting drum beat. The piano riff continues as the guitars build with some more drum variation and the song literally makes you feel like you've blasted off from a mountain into outer space and the song fades it's like you're seeing the world fade away below you. It's so good.
Q: Q: Do you find it hard to be inspired by your peers? Can you name any new artists you find inspiring?
A: I don't know if I'd consider us to be peers of these bands, but in the Post-Rock genre I am a big fan of This Will Destroy You, Maybeshewill, and Bruit. Outside of it I listen to Fightstar, Periphery, Deftones, and many others. They all inspire me for different reasons I suppose, but the most common denominator is that they are able to make me feel something.
Q: For your new album, what inspired the album title, and overall vibe?
A: Album title came up in conversation with a friend while our families were visiting an apple orchard. We were picking apples and my kids kept taking/biting more apples than we told them they could. He said something along the lines of "they're thieves in the grove" and it immediately went into my notes app. There were different working titles but this one always seemed like the right one. As for the vibe, kind of a boring answer is I don't know that I always write with an overall vibe in mind. Usually these songs are a representation of my feelings of life at the moment and they happen over such a large amount of time. That being said, as we were putting it all together we thought the songs felt like different sections of time/feeling so we came up with the idea to turn them into acts. Once we did that, I felt that all the moments I had experienced came together to finish the puzzle.
Q: Do you find that you ruminate over writing songs and hold on to them for a long time before including them on a record? Or do you prefer to write them, release them, and be done with them? Do you ever re-visit old material to do a re-write or once it’s done it’s done?
A: I definitely have a hard time saying yes this is 100% complete! We've found ourselves in a pretty good rhythm right now where the writing process never really stops. Almost all the songs on this album were written during this album cycle but there is one that was a "b-side" from our last release, The Days Are Long but The Years Are Short". Once they are out into the world and officially released I will not go back and edit them, even if I hear something that is a bad take or part of the mix I wish was different. Once it's out, it's out.
Q: Were there any lessons you learned in the writing and recording process for your current release that you will take with you into your next project?
A: I'm an operator by nature so I will always analyze how to do things more efficiently. It's a boring answer, but there's ways that I want to approach the Logic files to help better our writing/recording process. Also, I've been working on getting this project to the stage and there's stuff I recorded on some tracks that is just like "is every pedal on? -yes" type moments that I wish I wrote down to help teach the people I'm working with.