Similar Phantoms: Small Reactions ain’t afraid of no ghosts

• Sarah Stover
• Small Reactions

Well-oiled music machine Small Reactions, featuring longtime pals Scotty Hoffman (vocals, guitar), Sean Zearfoss (drums), Sam Jacobsen (organ), and Clinton Callahan (bass), celebrates the release of its first full-length at the Earl tonight (Tues.,Oct. 21). The aptly named Similar Phantoms is a culmination of years of experience and a dueling representation of Small Reaction’s nerve pop and krautrock roots that manages to feel both contemporary and transcendent at the same time. While practicing at the Cottage, the East Atlanta recording and rehearsal space where they also happen to live, Hoffman, Zearfoss, and Jacobsen took some time out to talk about themes in the new album, ongoing influences, and the art of balancing domestic and creative lifestyles.

You released the EP Hung From Wire in July. Was this a strategic move to get people interested and invested for Similar Phantoms?
Scotty Hoffman: That was total strategy. We were eager but the songs on the EP are also included on Similar Phantoms.
Sean Zearfoss: We wanted to see if it garnered any interest from people and kind of get a forecast or a primer for the actual record. This is our first full-length album; we wanted to make sure people got what they came for.

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Similar Phantoms by Small Reactions

You have proclaimed that this album has nothing to do with love. The single “Terrorangles” seems to be a song about closing yourself off from your friends. Is that the general theme of the album?
Sam Jacobsen: Similar Phantoms is sort of a far-reaching concept about ghosts. It’s really about ghosts of thoughts that you used to have.
SH: Yeah, those were issues that I was dealing with for a while. I had a kid a couple years ago, so all of a sudden I went from living in a very social space and going out to see shows every night to moving up to Marietta and being isolated from all my friends. It all worked out fine but I was a little shaky for a while about how things would turn out. Some people stopped talking to me when that happened and some stuck around, so a lot of these songs are about working that out.
SZ: There’s kind of spooky theme as well. Even our album art is by a Canadian director named Guy Maddin who makes silent horror films.
SH: It’s a night time record for the harvest season.

You’ve said that creating your single “Saint In Robes” was an effortless process, is that a typical occurrence for you guys?
SH: That happens a lot. Often, when we get together for practice we’ll open up just improvising things. I think that particular day, we had all worked for almost 12 hours and had a show that night but we came to the Cottage to practice and it just opened up and happened that way.
SJ: Yeah those are our best moments because we’re all coming from different lives and we go down to practice and often times without saying a word, things just come together.
SZ: We can typically tell as a group when something is or isn’t working. We usually know within the first 5 minutes if a song is going to be strong. The effortless ideas are what we try to stick with. Technically, we are a pop band but we like to take the catchiest hooks and make them as weird as possible so it has a unique stamp.

Stereolab and Television are major influences for Small Reactions. How does it feel to be constantly compared to bands that helped you find a unique sound?
SH: If someone was describing us to somebody and used those bands as a broad comparison, I would be totally fine with that.
SZ: Ultimately, I would just want people to enjoy the music and if they catch onto it via Stereolab and Television then awesome but even if they’ve never heard of those bands it’s great all the same.
SH: I like always having the influences a part of the conversation because these are bands that I think everyone should know.
SZ: It’s a good conversation starter. If someone comes up and says, “Hey, you guys sound a lot like early Stereolab,” we are immediately thankful that they get what we are trying to do.

You’ve mentioned being frustrated in the past because you weren’t reaching the kind of audience you wanted but now it seems there is a wide and loyal following. Can you pinpoint exactly when people started paying attention?
SJ: People probably started taking us more seriously when we started taking ourselves more seriously. When we were younger, we definitely thought we could just move down to Atlanta, follow some laid out path, and people would just start showing up at shows. We were maybe a little disappointed when it didn’t happen like that and went on a bit of a hiatus when Scotty had his little boy. After all that it was just kind of a reassurance that this was something we wanted to do, it was something we had to do. So we decided to jump in with both feet and people’s ears started perking up.
SZ: Even though our sound is familiar, it’s hard to compare us to a lot of bands in Atlanta. We still have sort of a garage scene that’s lingered for a long time. It took a minute for people to start to understand what we’re trying to do but we started learning how to ease people into our weirder stuff. You can’t just throw people a brick wall and expect them to latch on.

What’s it like to live and work at the Cottage?
SZ: Sam and I have been living at the Cottage for almost six years. Probably about 80 percent of the time its great and then the other 20 percent you feel like you might need to escape. It was really bad when we used to do shows in the basement. Luciano Giarrano moved in, in 2011, he founded the studio here and recorded Similar Phantoms. He wanted to start having shows here and make it a big creative space but it just became counter productive to our school and work schedules. Him and Damon Moon are running the studio and trying out more creative outlets but on a smaller scale.

Small Reactions plays the Earl tonight (Tues., Oct. 21), with Beverly and On Holiday. $10. 8:30 p.m. The Earl, 488 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-522-3950. www.badearl.com.